Currently Nameless
by BelleMacFarlane
Summary: since the age of 13, Zoey Maynard has been raised like family by John Winchester, and has formed strong bonds with his two sons. Join Zoey, Sam and Dean as they hunt the creatures that haunt your imagination and become their reality.
1. The Beginning

Zoey's eyes opened with a snap.

It was pitch black. The clock on her bedside table told her it was 3am. She listened intently, having been awoken by a creaking noise. After a few moments, she heard it again. It was coming from behind her, it almost sounded like it was on the other side of her bed. She reached over and turned her lamp on, then slowly she turned around. There was no-one there. She sat up and watched where she had heard the creaking.

"Boo!" Came a voice, as a familiar head appeared over the side of her bed, making Zoey jump.

"Dean, you bastard!" Zoey cursed as he laughed, before plonking himself next to her on the bed. "You're pure evil, you know that?"

"You know it," he grinned, his hands behind his head.

"At least do me the courtesy of telling me what the hell you're doing in my bedroom at 3 in the morning?"

"What, you don't remember what we did last night?" Dean asked, pretending to be shocked. Zoey threw a pillow at him. "Ow," he said sarcastically. "Ow!" He exclaimed as she threw a book at him this time. "Seriously, dude, a book?"

"It'll be the lamp next time," she told him in all seriousness. "What are you doing here?"

"Okay, okay, geez." He rubbed his shoulder where the book had hit him. A bruise was forming. "I'd forgotten how violent you are. Which brings me to my next point. I need your help. You and Sam."

"With what?"

"What do you think?"

Zoey frowned slightly. "John forbade me from ever hunting again, Dean. Are you actually disobeying his orders for once?"

"That's the thing. He's gone hunting, and I haven't heard from him in a few days. We need to go find him, all three of us."

Zoey scoffed. "You really think Sam'll come? You think John'd be very happy if he knew you were dragging my ass out there to find him? He's experienced, Dean, he'll find his own way back-"

"It needs to be all of us," Dean interrupted. "Dammit, Zoey, I'm not doing this without you."

Zoey sighed. "Fine. You go get Sam, I'll meet you there." She stood up and turned the main light on, and turned around to find Dean was still on the bed, watching her. "Oi. Dean. My face is up here."

He looked up at her, grinning. "Right. Hey, why don't we wait 'til morning to wake little Sammy up?" Dean stood up from the bed and made his way over to her.

Zoey folded her arms, her eyebrows raised. "And why would we do that?"

"Baby needs his sleep," he shrugged. He was standing right in front of her now. She still had to look up slightly to see him. "And, you know... it's been a while." He gently stroked her cheek with his finger, and moved a piece of hair out of her face. "I thought maybe we could catch up."

Zoey looked into Dean's eyes. She'd been in this position many times before. She knew she only did it to keep her mind off him. Off of Sam. She loved him more than she could describe, had done for many years, but he had no idea. No-one did. The night she first became intimate with Dean was the same day she found out Sam was seeing Jessica. But she had no reason now, she could walk away, she could say no. But she didn't. Dean's lips met hers, and although her mind told her to pull away, she only wrapped her arms around his neck. She knew she should put her feet back on the ground, but she let him lift her up. As Dean lay her on the bed, every ounce of sense in her told her to get off, but she found Dean climbing over her body. She should have made him stop, she should have moved his hands away, but they crawled over her body and his, slowly removing their clothes. This was her last chance to stop it, to stop him, to stop both of them... she could just sit up, put her clothes back on and go talk to Sam. Pretend nothing had happened. But it was too late.


	2. The Ballad Of Zoey Maynard

**11 years ago (Zoey is 13)**

Zoey shivered in the cold tent, cuddling up to her mother for warmth. This was the first time they'd been camping, and she didn't like it at all. She closed her eyes and tried to drift off to sleep. Just as she was about to sleep, she was awoken suddenly by the temperature decreasing. Her eyes snapped open. She identified the reason immediately – the campfire outside had been extinguished. Her dad crawled out of the tent to begin relighting the fire.

A few minutes passed. Zoey thought she saw some sort of shadow shoot past the wall of the tent, but it was gone so quickly, she figured it must have been her mind playing tricks on her. Then, there was a low growling noise. Frightened, Zoey cuddled closer to her mother.

"What's that?" She whispered.

"It's okay, sweetie," her mother replied, "it's just the wind."

As much as she wanted to believe her, Zoey knew that wasn't the wind. "It sounds like a bear!"

Before her mother had time to reply, her father yelled. There was definitely something out there, it was attacking him. Zoey screamed for her father, but her mother held her back and put her hand over her mouth.

"Sshh," she soothed, "don't let it hear you."

Suddenly, the shouting stopped and all was silent. Zoey's mother stood up and slowly made her way towards the entrance. Zoey shivered, from fear this time. The moment her mother looked out the tent, she was torn from the tent by the same thing, screaming. Unable to contain herself, Zoey screamed as loud as she could. The thing heard her, and tore at the tent. Unable to bear seeing it, Zoey closed her eyes as tight as she could, and tried to block it out. She felt a cold, disgusting hand pick her up and carry her away. It wasn't a bear they were being attacked by. Whatever it was, it was hairless, humanoid, sticky and it smelt disgusting.

* * *

It was cold again. Zoey's eyes opened slowly. She looked around as they adjusted to the light, or what little there was of it. She was in a deep dark cave. She tried to move, but her hands were tied above her head.

"Zoey?" Came a familiar voice.

She looked up, and was relieved to see both her parents, tied up in the same way.

"Thank God, you're okay," sighed her mother.

The growling began again, from the depths of the cave. Frightened, Zoey and her parents froze. From within the silence came steady, wet footsteps. Then, she saw it. The most disgusting creature she had ever seen, one which she would have nightmares about for a long time after.

It stood in front of them, looking between them as if it were choosing them. Slowly, it approached her mother, who began whimpering in fear. The creature sniffed at her. Zoey and her parents all watched with baited breath, waiting for the creature's next move. And whatever it was going to be... they were helpless.

After examining Zoey's mother for a while, the thing made a sudden movement. Zoey began screaming, her dad shouting, as they had no choice but to watch this disgusting creature eat her mother alive.

* * *

The next day, it came back. Again, it feasted. Zoey had no choice, she tried to close her eyes but that just amplified the yells. The creature had eaten her mother, now it was eating her father, right in front of her eyes.

As the shouting stopped, Zoey opened her eyes and saw it, blood dripping down its chin, watching her, before turning around and leaving. Zoey sobbed. She knew it was coming for her next, and she couldn't escape. She felt weak and defeated. She was the only one left. This was it. The end.

* * *

Zoey didn't sleep that night. Part of her didn't want to, so her last hours felt longer, but apart of her wanted it over. If that creature didn't kill her, she would die of starvation and thirst.

After some time, she heard footsteps approaching. She shook and sobbed with fear. It was coming to kill her. She was going to die. It felt so surreal.

"Hello?"

She hadn't expected that.

Zoey looked up, and was shocked and relieved to see a living, breathing human man standing in front of her.

"Are you Zoey?" He asked.

She nodded, her mouth too parched for speech. The man glanced at the skeletons of her parents, stripped to the bone, before looking back at her. "It's okay," he said comfortingly, "the thing that killed your parents is dead. You're safe now." He reached up and cut her loose, then caught her as she fell. Gently, he sat her down on the floor, her back propped up against the stone wall.

"Here," came another, younger, male voice. A boy of about eleven crouched down next to the older man, and handed him a bottle of water.

"Thanks, Sam." The man held the bottle up to Zoey's mouth and helped her drink. "Zoey, I'm John. This is my son Sam."

She looked over at Sam. He looked at her with as much concern as his dad did. He had such a warm, inviting look about him. Like she could trust him.

"I did it, Dad," said another young male voice. A boy of about fifteen approached. "That sucker's so burnt he don't know what hit him."

"Thanks, Dean," said John. "Good job. Come on, boys, let's get her out of here. Can you stand?"

"Yeah," Zoey croaked, "yeah, I think so."

John put his arm around her back and lifted her to the ground. Sam supported her from the other side. Dean led the way out of the cave, a torch in one hand and a gun in the other. They were both so young, yet they were doing this as if it were natural for teenage boys to burn man-eating humanoids and carry a gun through its cave.

"Thank you," she murmured, her voice weak. "Thank you..."


	3. Fire

Zoey woke up, but she kept her eyes shut. She let the memories of the pervious night come rushing back, as she breathed in Dean's scent.

"You awake?"

"Yeah," she murmered under her breath, looking up at him. They kissed each other deeply. "We should get up," she said, pulling away and sitting up. "Remember why you came in the first place?"

Zoey began pulling her clothes on. She could feel Dean's eyes on her. "Get off the bed or I'll throw the lamp," she said casually in an almost sing-song voice. She couldn't help but laugh as he immediately jumped up and began getting re-dressed.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" He asked, pulling his shirt over his head.

"You scared of me or something?"

"Yeah, I'm terrified," he said sarcastically, "ever since your brave feat back in that wentigo cave."

"Lamp," she warned. "Come on, let's go get Sammy."

As Dean drove and listened to his Metallica CD, Zoey's mind wandered to the previous night. It was the first and only time she'd slept with him just because he came on to her. She'd always taken solace in the fact she did it to forget about Sam's blindness. But now she hadn't and it couldn't happen again. She didn't want or need herself, or Dean for that matter, to think what they were doing had anything more than lust to it. She didn't want things to get complicated or awkward. It was hard enough for her with Sam being oblivious to her affections, she didn't want it getting worse.

"We're here," said Dean, stopping the car and interrupting Zoey's train of thought. They got out the car and Dean knocked on the door. A few moments passed; he knocked again.

"Maybe he's not in?" Zoey suggested.

"Nah, he's here," Dean replied, getting some keys out of his pocket and unlocking the door.

"Why did you even knock in the first place if you already had a key?" She asked as they entered.

"Courtesy," he replied as if he were at all courteous.

"Oh my God," came a female voice. Dean and Zoey turned to see Jessica standing by the kitchen doors. "You scared me, Zoey! Who's this?"

"Oh, this is Sam's brother, Dean," she replied, "Dean, this is Sam's girlfriend, Jessica."

Dean immediately set upon flirting with Jess. Zoey heard movement upstairs and, guessing it was Sam, made her way up. She heard a shower stopping. She went over to the bathroom door and was about to knock when it opened, and Sam was standing there, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. She was taken aback for a moment at the sight of his perfectly formed body.

"Zoey?!" He said in surprise, shutting the door behind him. "What... what are you doing here?"

"We came to talk to you," she said. _But now I have other ideas_, she thought.

"We?"

"Dean's with me," she explained, regaining her concentration and reluctantly drawing her eyes up to his face. "He's downstairs with Jess."

"My ears are burning," Dean said as he and Jessica appeared at the top of the stairs. Jess wrapped her arm around Sam's waist. "You heard the lady, Sammy, we need to talk. We'll meet ya downstairs, I need to, uh... get acquainted with Jessica here," he winked. Sam rolled his eyes while Jessica raised her eyebrows and Zoey snickered. "Oh, yeah, and Sam... get some damn clothes on. Your measly guns are shaming me."

"Please don't," Zoey breathed inaudibly.

"What?" Dean asked, noticing her lips move.

"Nothing! Just... I remembered something," she lied.

"What was it? Was it about Dad?"

"Nah, it doesn't matter," she shook it off, "it's private."

"Wait, what's this about Dad?" Sam frowned.

"It's why we're here," Dean explained. "Dad hasn't been home in a couple of days."

"So he's gone away with work," Sam shrugged as Jess tried to make eye contact with Zoey, who averted it.

"Sam, he's gone hunting," Zoey reiterated.

Sam's face dropped. "Please leave us, Jess," he said monotonously.

"But Sam-"

"Please, Jess, it's private."

"Okay," she sighed. "Dean, you seem capable enough of explaining whatever to Sam on your own. Zoey, I want a word with you. Downstairs."

Zoey was shocked. "Okay," she shrugged, following her down the stairs. Jess pulled her into the kitchen and shut the door.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She said abrasively.

"What are you talking about?" Zoey frowned.

"You know what, I'm sick of this, Zoey!"

"Sick of _what_?!"

"This! All this pretence, like I don't know. Sam may be as blind as a bat, but I can see right through you, Zoey, and I'm sick of it!"

"Jess-"

"You're in love with him," she stated, her arms folded. "Aren't you?"

Zoey didn't respond.

"I knew it. Why can't you just admit Sam loves me, and not you, you'd never have a chance with him Zoey, not while I'm alive."

"You think I don't know that?! Why do you think I haven't told him, or Dean, or John, or anybody? He's never shown any signs of feeling the same way back. When he started dating you, I thought it'd wear out like all the other girls he'd dated, but it didn't. He fell in love with you, Jessica, and it broke my heart. So why didn't I say anything, why did I pretend it wasn't true? Because he's happy with you. He loves you, and it kills me, but he's finally got what he always wanted. We can't both be happy. And I guess the gods chose his happiness over mine, and I just have to deal with it."

"Sam told me you used to go travelling or something with Dean and his father. Why did you stop? Why didn't you just go with them, and try to forget Sam and me?"

"I did," Zoey sighed, leaning against the counter. "But I tried too much. I threw myself into it and nearly got killed. It's a long story how, but.... John banned me from travelling again. He made me move in near to you, so Sam could keep an eye on me."

Before Jess could reply, there was a knock at the door.

"You two done in there?" Dean asked. "Please say no, I wanna watch."

Zoey pushed the door open and raised an eyebrow at Dean.

"Please don't say lamp," he grinned.

"Kick in the nuts," she replied, unimpressed. "Let's go."


	4. Assistant Manager At Try'n'Save

The hotel room was certainly John's; the walls were lined with missing persons posters, newspaper clippings and folklore. There was even a ring of salt in the middle of the room.

"Doin' alright?" Dean asked Zoey, who was looking around like a lost sheep.

She nodded. "Just feel a bit like a fish out of water, is all."

"Well, you shouldn't be," he shrugged. "You're a natural born hunter. Dad made you that way."

"I'm the assistant manager at Try'n'Save," she reminded him. "John was the one who got me that job interview, remember?"

"Hey, guys, check this out," Sam interrupted, peering at the wall.

"Looks like Dad checked out the same article we did," Dean commented, looking at the same article on the wall as they had looked at earlier on Sam's laptop.

"Woman in White..." Zoey muttered, looking at something else, piquing the boys' interest, who read over her shoulder. There was a paper on the wall, which John had labelled. It explained the legend of a woman in white, who in her life, had had a happy marriage, but had discovered her husband to be unfaithful. In a fit on insanity, she had killed her own children and then herself. In the afterlife, she roamed highways, hitching rides with unfaithful men and killing them.

"I'm just gonna go get something out the car," said Dean. "Zoey, come with."

"Why should I?"

"Just do it, sweetcheeks."

Zoey rolled her eyes and followed Dean out of the hotel room. They had just reached halfway across the road, when Dean spotted a police car.

"Trouble at 3 o'clock," he murmered to her, pulling her arm to turn her away. He grabbed his cell phone and warned Sam about the police. Just as he hung up, the officer caught up with them. Before they knew what had hit them, Zoey and Dean were being arrested.

"You pull me out of retirement after 3 years, and then get us arrested," she whispered to him as they were escorted into an interrogation room. "Good one, asshole."

"Thanks, whore," he whispered back. "Just let the grown ups do the talking, okay?"

"Shut up," said the officer gruffly as he threw the two of them into their seats and sat opposite them, shutting the door behind him.

"My name's Officer Hitchcox," he said. "What are yours?"

"Well, considering you just arrested us, I'd expect you to know already," replied Dean.

"So if you don't, you evidently arrested the wrong people; I think we can be on our way now," added Zoey.

Officer Hitchcox smiled sarcastically. "Funny. The only names we have for you two are definitely not right."

Dean raised his eyebrows innocently. Zoey had forgotten how good he was at improvisation. "Something wrong with our names?"

"Well, yeah. For one, they're the same. A bit strange seeing as you can't be related."

"And why can't we be related?"

"You're Latina," the officer stated, looking at Zoey. "And no rings. You're not married. So what are your real names?"

"Fine," Dean sighed. "You got us. My name's Bob Dunnet. This is my friend, Ciara Sharlet."

The officer sighed. He stood up and slammed a box on the table, with such force it made Zoey wince. She immediately recognized John's journal as it was thrown in front of them.

"You recognize this?"

Zoey shrugged. "Should we?"

"Not talking to you, Ciara. If that is your real name." He looked at Dean. "You do recognize this. Don't you, Dean?"

Dean and Zoey frowned, confused as to how the officer could know Dean's real name.

"Thought that might be your name," he smirked. The officer flicked through the journal. "I had a look through here. Couldn't understand most of it, and what I could understand was a whole load of crazy. But I did find this." He stopped on a page which had John's handwriting on, where he had written "DEAN 45-111" and circled it. "Now, you're not leaving this room until you tell me what the hell that means."

Zoey zoned out as Dean insisted that 45-111 was his high school locker number. Her mind wandered back to the previous night. Despite the fact she didn't want it to happen again, she couldn't deny it was good. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop thinking about it. The touch of Dean's skin, the taste of his lips... all the deep and dirty details, they kept coming back to her. Luckily, her thoughts were interrupted as the door to the interrogation room opened.

"Sorry to interrupt," said another officer, "but we just got a 911 call. There's been a shooting down on main."

"You two need to go to the bathroom?" Hitchcox asked them.

"No," Zoey and Dean replied in unison.

"Good." Hitchcox handcuffed the two of them to the table. After he had gone, they both looked down at John's journal and noticed a paperclip poking out.

"What an idiot," they said, in unison again.

"We gotta stop doing that," Zoey told him as he picking at the lock on his handcuffs, and then hers.

"Told you to let the grown ups do the talking," he replied. "Lucky that 911 call came in, though."

Zoey looked at him. "Dean, that was Sam."

He frowned. "You sure?"

"How can you not be?"

Dean shrugged. "Come on," he said, noting that the station was clear. They silently made their escape from the station, and went to find Sam.


	5. All Girls Are Barsexual

**11 years ago (4 days after Zoey is rescued)**

"She's not even one of us, she's not even brave!" Sam yelled at his father outside the motel room. John Winchester had been looking after Zoey for 4 days now. She was still in a rather catatonic state, refusing food or any kind of medical help to bring her out of her trance. She sat between Sam and Dean's beds, listening to the argument outside.

"I thought you said we would always move on?" Dean pressed on from what Sam had been saying. "What the hell makes her so special?"

"Maybe nothing," John replied. "Or maybe everything."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam asked curiously.

"It means that Zoey is staying with us for as long as necessary," John began raising his voice now.

"How long is as long as necessary?" Dean asked.

"Until we find where she belongs," John replied calmly.

"What if we can't find where she belongs?" Sam asked, still suspicious of his father's motives.

"Then she belongs with us," he replied simply. "We treat this girl with some respect, we treat her like family, do you understand?"

"But-" Sam protested, but John interrupted him.

"That's an order, both of you!" For a few moments, their voices fell silent. Then, John spoke again, "come on, let's get inside."

Quickly, Zoey curled up on the floor and pretended to be asleep. After some quiet footsteps, a hand touched her shoulder and shook her gently. She opened her eyes, pretending to wake up.

"We got some food," John told her comfortingly. "You gotta eat something, Zoey. Please."

Zoey knew he was right. She had intense stomach cramps from starvation and was feeling faint. Slowly, she sat up, nodding. John smiled, relieved. He helped her up off the floor, and she sat on the edge of Sam's bed. Just as she did, Sam came over and sat next to her, passing her a burger. She took a bite out of it, feeling a whole lot better with just one bite.

"I heard you arguing about me just now," she said quietly as Dean sat down opposite them. "I'll go when I can, I promise, I just... I'm so scared. And I feel like I can only be safe with your dad around."

Sam took Zoey's hand in his. "You'll be alright," he promised. "He'll keep you safe."

**Present day**

"This looks like it might be something," Sam said, looking up from the paper, and then realizing he was on his own. He saw Dean at the bar, chatting some girl up, again. Zoey was nowhere to be seen. "Dean!" Sam shouted, making his brother turn. Sam beckoned him over.

"Where's Zoey?" Dean asked as he sat down.

"Thought you knew?" Sam replied, worried. The two boys looked around the bar, then Dean spotted her emerging from the bathroom. Her hair was a mess, and she was straightening her shirt. A blonde woman, in the same condition, followed after.

"Looks like I owe someone $10," Dean commented as Zoey sat down next to him, looking proud of herself as she flattened her hair with her hands.

"He bet me $10 he could pick up a hot chick first," she explained to Sam, who looked rather confused. "But he forgot two very important things."

"Oh, yeah?" Dean smirked. "And what's that?"

"First, all girls are barsexual at least," she listed. "Second, none of them can resist me."

Sam cleared his throat. "Guys, can we get back on track, please?"

Dean sighed. "Fine, whatever. None of the chicks here are hot enough for me anyway."

"Oi," Zoey nudged him, before turning to Sam and asking, "what have you got?"

"Maybe nothing," he replied. "Or maybe everything." Sam laid the paper on the table. "Grizzly bear attacks. Or that's that the officials are saying, anyway, but it seems fishy. None of the attacks actually prove it's a bear."

"Any survivors?" Dean asked, his interest piqued.

"None. All dead or disappeared." Sam looked at Zoey. "You're quiet."

Zoey stared, transfixed, at the paper. "It all rings familiar," she said emptily.

Sam and Dean looked at each other, realizing what they were probably up against. Sam reached over and took Zoey's hand and squeezed it. She looked at his hand in hers, then squeezed it back as she looked up at him. His hand was so warm and soft.

"You'll be alright," he comforted her. "We'll keep you safe."


	6. The Life And Death Of Buggy Jimmy

It was dark. The group sat around the campfire, hoding in their protective circle. Zoey sat by Sam, who was having a conversation with Dean. A few odd words and phrases drifted her way - "Dad" ... "Jessica" ... "all I can think about" ... "sons of bitches". Zoey's eyes remained blank, her eyes fixated on a small beetle that was climbing over the log, making its way towards Dean. As was usual for her in moments like this, Zoey started to wonder. She wondered if that beetle's parents were alive. Maybe that was why it was making its way towards Dean - perhaps he had sat on its parents and it wanted revenge.

"Son of a bitch," Dean cursed as he spotted the beetle from following Zoey's line of vision and squashed it. "You seen the size of that sucker, Zo?"

"You better hope that beetle didn't have siblings," she replied monotonously. "And don't call me Zo."

"Why?"

"Because you already squashed his parents," she said faintly. "He was coming to get his revenge, now you squished Buggy Jimmy."

Dean frowned. "You _named_ him?" He asked in disbelief.

Just as Zoey opened her mouth to speak, there was an unfriendly noise from within the forestry, making them all jump up in unison.

"Hey, er, Dean?" Sam interrupted the initial shock of the noise.

"What?"

"You got a little something on your hand."

Dean raised his right hand. "Well, yeah, I just squished a damn bug, didn't I?"

"That was Buggy Jimmy," Zoey reminded him.

"Well, whatever you wanna call it, it's still-"

"He meant your other hand," she interrupted.

Frowning, Dean raised his left hand and looked at it closely. "Well, whaddya know," he said curiously. "Mr and Mrs Buggy Jimmy Senior. Guess you were right, Zo."

"Zoey," she corrected.

"Zoey..." Sam frowned looking between Dean's hand and Zoey. "How did you know about them?"

"I didn't," she replied. "I made it up."

"Uh... guys?" Came Hayley's voice. "There's something in the trees."

"it's okay, Dean reassured her, walking over. "It can't get in."

"Because of the magic circle?" Roy asked sarcastically.

Sam, Dean and Zoey all looked at him, unimpressed. "Shut up," Zoey told him. "Everyone. Shush."

Ominous music played in Zoey's head as everyone stood stock still, absolutely silent, waiting. Just waiting, watching the tree line. There was a sound of a twig snapping as the wendigo moved. A feeling of utmost rage and hate boiled up inside Zoey's stomach. Her feet screamed at her to run after it, to kill it. Her desire for revenge was boiling up inside her, but she knew she had to wait.

Zoey's self-control was proved when a gunshot rang out. Roy had shot at it, and it had run.

"Damnit, Roy!" Dean cursed at him. Before anything more could be said, Roy ran after the ferocious creature, with no idea what he was facing.

Frustrated at Roy's rash behaviour, Zoey drew her gun and raced after him, the boys, Hayley and Ben hot on her heels.

"ROY!" Sam shouted as they followed. "Where's he gone?"

Zoey spotted Roy running past a tree. "There!" In the tree, she saw a silhouette preparing to jump. "Look out!" She shouted, but before he could duck out of the way, the wendigo swung down from its branch and snapped Roy's neck, then retreated back into the trees, just as the rest caught up with her. They immediately saw Roy's body on the floor, his neck snapped. "It got him," she whipsered "That son of a bitch got him, and I didn't save him!"

Sam put his hand on her shoulder. "Hey, hey, come on. He pissed it of by shooting at it, you couldn't have stopped it."

Zoey looked up at him darkly. "If I'd have pushed him out of the way instead of stopping and shouting..."

"You'd have had your neck snapped instead." Sam finished her sentence. "And it would have finally got you after 11 years." Zoey looked away, and over at Roy's corpse. Sam softly moved her head so she was looking back at him. "Hey. Don't blame yourself."

"He cracked so easily..."

"Remember what I said in the bar," he reminded her. "We'll keep you safe, I promise."

Zoey smiled. He could always convince her when he put on his perfectness. Not that he was aware of his gift.

She cocked her gun. "Let's find this son of a bitch."


	7. Burn Baby Burn

After they'd all run around the forest scared for a while, the gang had split up as the wendigo closed in on them. Dean and Hayley had run off in one direction, Sam and Ben in another. Zoey found herself completely alone. Panic rose up in her chest, but she did her best not to show it, despite her being completely on her own.

She leant against a nearby tree. She heard nothing but the sound of the breeze through the leaves. There was no sign that there was anyone - or any_thing_ - in the forest with her. At least, there wasn't at first. But then, suddenly, a scream came, as if from nowhere. Zoey wondered at first if she had imagined it, merely her subconsciousness reminding her of her previous encounter. But she knew it must have been real. She quickly deduced it was Hayley screaming - neither Dean nor Sam were the screaming type, and it was simply too high-pitched to be Ben's.

Zoey followed the source of the sound. She went slow at first, then broke into a run. Still, there was no sign of other life. All she could hear was her own breathing, the ground beneath her feet, and the wind rushing past her ears. Then she skidded to a halt as she stopped before a mouldy old tunnel entrance. A sign above read, _Warning! Danger! Do not enter. Extremely toxic material. Keep out, no admittance._ To Zoey, that translated to _Monster in here. Follow to exterminate._

After clambering in as silently as possible, Zoey was relieved to see two figures standing in the tunnel. She approached them and lightly put her hand on the shoulder of Sam's bulky figure to tell him she was there. He glanced at her in the darkness, his face half-illuminated by the sunlight from the entrance. He smiled, evidently glad she was okay.

A growling noise came from within the tunnels, so quickly, the three of them backed up against the wall. Zoey saw the dark silhouette of the wendigo coming down the tunnel towards them. Sam's hand quickly shot up and covered Ben's mouth to prevent any noise coming out. To their relief, the wendigo turned down a side passage. With Sam leading, the trio began creeping down the tunnel, but after only a few yards, the floor began to creak and, to their surprise, they fell through the floor into an underground cave, amongst a pile of skeletons.

Looking up, Zoey immediately spotted the figures of Hayley and Dean, tied from the roof by their hands, in just the fashion she had been. It was like stepping into the past, only she and Dean were in opposite positions. Sam rushed to Dean and Ben to Hayley, while Zoey looked around at the skeletons on the floor. She couldn't help but wonder who was who. How had they got there, what had they lost? How many lives had been ruined because these skeletons were here? Zoey shuddered unexpectantly, although there was no draft.

She ignored the sound of Hayley running to rescue Tommy as she spotted something on the ground, something she didn't expect to see on the floor of a wendigo's cave. Zoey knelt down and picked it up, realizing there was actually two of them.

"What'cha got there, Zo?"

Zoey jumped, not realizing Dean had been cut down and was now standing next to her, holding a skull in his hands. She stood up and held up what she had found.

"Flare guns," Sam said, sounding as surprised as Zoey had been to find them there. "Those'll work."

Zoey looked back at Dean, who was still holding the skull. "Do I even wanna ask...?" She began.

Dean grinned and held the skull before him, his arm outstretched. He pulled a melodramatic rueful face and said, "alas, poor Yorick... I hardly knew ye."

"Number one: Children shouldn't play with dead things," Zoey said, taking the skull from Dean's hand and placing it back down with the rest of its body. "Number two: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio - a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Number three: Let's get the hell outta here."

The two of them lead the way through the tunnel, with Sam, Tommy, Hayley and Ben following, a limping Tommy being supported. Part way down the tunnel, a low growling came from within the depths.

"Looks like someone's home for supper," Dean commented in a low voice, so just Zoey could hear him.

"We're never gonna outrun it," Hayley said, concerned.

Dean looked between Zoey and Sam. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" They both nodded. Dean turned to Hayley and Ben. "All right, listen to me. Stay with Sam, he's gonna get you outta here."

"What are you two gonna do?" Hayley asked as Zoey chucked one of the flare guns to Sam.

Dean glanced at Zoey, then winked at Hayley. In unison, Zoey and Dean began walking towards the sound of the wendigo. "Chow time you freaky bastard!" He yelled. "Yeah that's right, bring it on baby, I'm feelin good!"

Zoey joined in the yelling, trying to distract the wendigo. The adrenaline and her sheer determination pushed any sign of fear from her system. But the creature came nowhere near them, instead it continued to persue its intended meal. She heard Sam shoot at it, but he obviously missed, as all it did was roar.

Not knowing how many flares had been in either gun, Zoey quickly followed the noise of their footsteps as they ran. She came to the tunnel leading to the exit. The sunlight still shone through, illuminating the scene before her. The wendigo had its back to her. Sam stood in front of Hayley, Ben and Tommy, protecting them. She raised the flare gun and aimed it squarely at the creature's back. Zoey whistled through her teeth, the sound echoing loudly around the cave. The wendigo turned around and faced her, snarling.

"Remember me?" She said darkly, before pulling the trigger. The flare hit the creature's stomach. Zoey smiled triumphantly as the fire spread from its insides and its whole body burst into flames.

There was a moment of tension, before they could all sigh a sigh of relief. Zoey's eyes connected with Sam's. He grinned at her proudly.

"Not bad for a chick," Dean said in her ear. She raised an eyebrow at him and tossed him the flare gun, smirking.

Outside the ranger station, Tommy was being loaded up onto an ambulance while Ben lied to a policeman about a bear attack. While Hayley was thanking Dean, Sam pulled Zoey aside.

"Just before you shot the wendigo," he began, as she looked at him inquisitively. "You said something." There was a pause, as Zoey waited for him to go on. "You asked it if it remembered you."

"I hardly expect either of you to remember," she told him, "but this is where you found me. All those years ago. I... we camped in that forest. That cave was where I was taken to. Hell, that skull Dean picked up could have been one of my parents."

Sam frowned. "But Dean killed it," he told her. "I remember, Dad gave him a can of lighter fluid while we rescued you."

Zoey looked at him. "But did any of us actually see him kill it?"

Sam examiled her expression, considering what she had just said. Dean had certainly not been as brave back then as he was today. Who's to say he actually killed something that day? Or did they just escape on a lucky fluke?


	8. Angst & Sex

**Several months and many hunts later**

Most people, when anxious or upset, might take a drink to relax. Others might have a cigarette. Sure, both those things were calming. And the countless cigarettes Zoey had smoked over the last few days sure made her feel calmer than she would have done without. But there was only one thing that could do the job properly.

A few days previously, Zoey, Sam and Dean had followed up on a murder - both victims' throats slit, doors locked from the inside, no prints. "The police are baffled," the newspaper report had said. Of course, what they really meant was, "something supernatural's gone on here." The trio had gone through the usual routine - they went into the town, Sam did a little research, they met a girl, they had a showdown with the monster. But this time, the girl had been the true enemy - to Zoey, at least. It was blindingly obvious that there was a thing between Sam and this girl, Sarah.

As much as she had tried, Zoey was still seething with jealousy. So she was relieved to have finished the job, and to be now leaving town. She and Dean waited by the Impala as Sam said goodbye to Sarah. Finally he emerged from the building. He was about to come over to them, but instead he turned and knocked on the door. Sarah opened it, and the green-eyed monster inside Zoey's stomach had an epileptic fit as Sam kissed her.

"That's my boy," Dean muttered proudly, having no idea what was happening inside the mind of his best friend beside him. As he climbed into the car, Zoey had an idea. She walked around the Impala - to shotgun, instead of her usual back seat.

"Sam!" She called to him. He released the kiss and looked over at her. "See you in the morning, yeah?" Before he could protest, she had shotgun, and was pulling her seatbelt on. Dean drove, more than happy to leave Sam to get laid. But not knowing he was about to aswell.

Back in the hotel room, Zoey knew she shouldn't be using Dean in the way she was. But he wouldn't mind, right? As soon as he had shut the door behind them, she kissed him. He looked at her, surprised by her sudden actions.

"You and Sam are both getting laid this week," she shrugged. "Can't I?"

Dean grinned. He placed his hands around her waist and pulled her in tight, kissing her again, passionately this time. Her hands slithered over his shoulders as he picked her up and wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her over to the bed, only just able to find his way, he was so preoccupied with Zoey. Dean had no idea why she had decided she wanted him now, but then, she was never predictable. He lay her on the bed, pulling his shirt off as he climbed on top of her. Her hands immediately reached for his torso, snaking along the contours of his abs. Dean gently lifted her shirt off, his fingers tracing her body as he did so. As their clothes fell on the floor, Zoey and Dean fell into the deep abyss of lovemaking.

Sam knew that Zoey and Dean had left without him so he'd have no choice except to go back to Sarah's. But he knew that Sarah knew that he wouldn't. So instead, after kissing her goodbye again, he had begun to walk back to the motel. Sarah had offered him a ride in her car, but he had turned it down, fearing the awkwardness of saying goodbye again.

It was a long walk, but Sam enjoyed the fresh air. It gave him a chance to think. He pondered over Zoey, Dean and his father. It seemed all Dean wanted to do was to keep hunting, and all Zoey wanted was... well, Sam wasn't quite sure of that. Zoey wasn't an easy one to be sure of. She didn't seem to _want_ anything - just to be with him and his brother. If they found John, great, but Sam felt he was the only one desperate to find him.

Sam's mind kept wandering back to Zoey. She had been smoking an awful lot since they'd come into town. Maybe it was the air. It certainly smelt less polluted than most towns. But there was something else, like there was something on her mind. She was certainly anxious. He made a mental note to ask her about it when he found the right time. The last thing he wanted was for her to worry on her own.

It took him longer than expected to get to the motel. The Impala was still outside. At least they hadn't left town without him. Sam pulled out his key to the room and slid it in. He paused as he thought he heard a noise, but shook his head and disregarded it. Relieved to finally get inside, Sam entered the room and shut the door behind him. He looked up, and froze at the scene that stood before him.

Dean and Zoey were under the duvet of her bed. It wasn't hard for Sam to guess what they were doing. "Woah!" He exclaimed in shock, alerting them to the fact he was there. They looked up, shocked. Zoey's face turned bright red. Speechless, Sam backed out of the room.

Zoey could feel her face burning. She scrambled out of the bed and began tugging her clothes back on as quickly as she could.

"Woah, woah, Zo," Dean protested, "what are you doing? He's gone."

Zoey didn't reply, just raced out of the room after Sam, pulling her shirt down over her head. She was relieved he hadn't gone very far - he was standing at the corner of the path, getting a cola from the vending machine.

"Sam!" She called as she caught up with him. "Sam, you gotta let me explain-"

"You don't need to explain anything," he replied. Zoey was surprised at how angry he sounded. "I think I have a pretty clear idea on what you two were doing."

"You gotta understand, Sam," she pleaded, "we're not..." Zoey paused, choosing her words carefully. "I don't feel anything for Dean. I swear. I love him like a friend, that is it."

Sam didn't look convinced. "Then why were you doing the beast with two backs?"

Zoey bit her lip. She couldn't tell Sam the truth why. She couldn't tell anyone the truth. "I... I don't know, Sam. It's complicated."

"Complicated?" He frowned. "You mean you've done this before?"

She nodded sheepishly. Sam began to speak, but Zoey answered before he could ask. "Dean... Dean has always been there for me, Sam. When you've been too preoccupied with Jessica, with being normal, Dean has _always_ been by my side. And this... you know what he's like, Sam. And you know what I'm like."

"You know what, Zoey... I don't. I don't know what you're like. All this time I've known you, but you've never fully opened up to any of us, Dad included. It's like... like you wanna explode inwards. We care about you, Zoey, you know we do, but still you insist on keeping everything to yourself."

Zoey didn't reply. She just kept watching Sam, looking at him as if by doing so she could telepathically communicate with him and tell him the truth. She could feel the words in her throat, but there was something stopping them. She knew that something was cowardice. She was so brave when hunting, but when it came down to Sam... she was pathetic.

Without another word, Sam walked past her and back down the path. Swallowing, she turned and followed him.

"Where are you going?" She asked as she caught up with him.

"Away from you," he said shortly.

"When will you be back?"

"I don't know."

"Sam, please, don't do this-"

"_Leave me alone, Zoey!_" He shouted, catching her so off-guard that she stopped dead in her tracks, right next to their motel room door. Zoey could barely remember a time when Sam had shouted, especially not at her. She could feel her eyes watering as she watched his figure walk off.

After a few moments, the door opened. Zoey felt Dean's hand on her shoulder. She tried to surpress the tears that were flooding her eyes, but she knew it was no use. Silently, Dean pulled her into a hug, and she began sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder.


	9. I'm A User Baby So Why Don't You Kill Me

Dean and Zoey sat on the end of the bed. Dean said nothing. He kept a hold on Zoey, but wasn't really in the room. Neither of them were. They were both thinking about the same thing: Sam.

Zoey's tears had dried up by now, but she was still upset by Sam's stormout. She'd known he wouldn't be happy upon finding out, which was why she never told him, but didn't think he'd be this angry. He just wasn't the angry type - the only time she'd seen him argue with anyone was with John. But now, she'd had her first argument with him, and didn't like it one bit. What was she doing, anyway?

Dean had been thinking about Zoey's relationship with Sam. He hadn't seen them together much before they'd started hunting, mainly because Sam had decided to become estranged from them all. But he'd seen them together before, when they were teenagers, and for the last six months they'd all three of them been cooped up in hotel rooms together. And with long periods of nothing to do between hunts, Dean had definitely observed his brother's and his best friend's every move. And sometimes, the way Zoey looked at Sam... it was peculiar. Dean couldn't describe it. It was a pained look, but there was something more than that.

Or maybe...? No. It couldn't be. Could it? Zoey couldn't be in _love_ with Sam. He remembered throughout the years, how she sided with Sam on most arguments - she was even willing to let him go to college. He'd always thought that it was because she saw things the same way as Sam, but having spent more time with them both recently, he'd realized how similar Zoey was to himself, and how different Sam was to the both of them.

But, Dean reasoned, if she really was in love with Sam, why would she even sleep with him at all? What could she acheive from having sex with Dean if she loved someone else - his brother, of all people? He thought about how particular Zoey had been about when she slept with him. Sometimes she refused to submit herself to him, other times she was more than willing to give herself over.

Dean remembered clearly, the first time they'd had sex. Sam was gone by then, and Zoey and Dean had been hunting together, seperate from John, for a while. Dean had been trying for a while to seduce Zoey, but she'd always refused, saying it just had to be a "spur of the moment thing" for her to sleep with him. He and Sam hadn't talked in a long time, but Sam was still talking to Zoey. They had regular phone calls, and she was oddly interested in Sam's studies - they sounded boring to Dean.

One night, she'd been on the phone to him, and her face clearly read that she'd heard some horrific news. But when she spoke, she was pretending to be happy. That same night, he'd gone out to get a takeaway for them. As soon as he came in, he'd barely had time to register he was in the right room before Zoey's lips were on his. He'd gone alone with it - sex was sex, after all. He hadn't thought to question it - until now. Dean had never known much about Sam's relationship with Jessica, but he wouldn't be surprised if they'd started dating around that time. It explained Zoey's initial reaction and fake reply.

All of a sudden, it all made perfect sense. Zoey was totally in love with Sam, and had hidden it well. Sam broke her heart by dating Jessica, spurring her to give up on resisting Dean. Ever since they'd met Sarah, Zoey had been smoking more, and now, with a chance to make sure Sam wasn't there, she'd taken the chance to sleep with Dean. And he was willing to reckon all the other times she'd slept with him, Sam had done something to hurt her.

Dean realized he was feeling angry. Zoey had been using him all this time and he hadn't realized it.

"Dean?" Zoey's voice came from far away. He dragged his mind back into the motel room. "Dean, are you alright?"

He realized his brow was furrowed, and probably had been for a while. He looked at her. "No, actually," he replied.

Zoey frowned, confused. "What is it?"

Dean decided it was best just to come straight out with it. "Zoey, are you in love with Sam?"

"No," she denied, far too quickly.

"Let me rephrase that," he sighed, releasing the grip he had on her. "I know you're in love with Sam. And I know you've been using me for sex when he hurts you." Zoey sat up straight, looking alarmed. "I'm right then," he confirmed.

"How long have you known?" She asked anxiously.

"About 2 minutes," he told her honestly.

Zoey was relieved. She'd been worried Dean had known for longer and might have tattled. "Don't tell Sam," she ordered immediately. "Please."

"What, that's it?" Dean asked incredulously. "Not even making any excuses for the fact you've been using me? All you care about is not letting Sam find out? That's pathetic, Zoey."

Pathetic. That's exactly the word she'd used in her head to describe herself when it came to Sam. Now Dean was saying it - confirming what she already knew. Tears were in her eyes again, but she wouldn't let them fall. She knew nobody would be there to catch them. She couldn't even make any words out to say to Dean. She knew she should explain so much, she should apologize, but... nothing came out.

Frustrated by her silence, Dean stood up and began to walk out the room. Zoey didn't even bother to follow him like she had Sam. He was quite probably angrier at her than Sam. Dean stopped at the door and was about to say something to her, but instead he shook his head and left.

Zoey shuffled back onto the bed and pulled her knees up to her chest. She wrapped herself in a ball and sobbed.

* * *

It was late in the night - or early in the morning - when Dean found Sam. He was in a bar, playing snooker with a random guy. Dean approached his brother from behind.

"Sam," he announced, making him turn. "We need to talk."

"I've got nothing to say to you, Dean," Sam replied, turning back to continue playing the game.

Dean wouldn't take no for an answer. "Yeah, well, I've got something to say to you."

"Not interested," Sam said over his shoulder as he took aim.

"I'm not here to make excuses, Sam. Just hear me out, please."

Sam sighed and stood back up, turning around again. He looked at his brother for a few moments, then sighed. He put his cue down and followed Dean out the bar.


	10. Web Of Lies

Dean took Sam to a deserted alleyway beside the bar. Anger was still throbbing through his veins. How could he have missed it? Now that he knew, it was so obvious - not just Zoey's motivation for sleeping with him, but her feelings for Sam. She'd kept them far too well-hidden.

"What?" Sam asked Dean shortly as they came to a halt within the shadows of the alley. People walking past wouldn't see they were there at a glance.

Dean turned to his brother. While searching for him, he'd wondered how to phrase what he was going to say. He'd taken the words he wanted to say, and their synonyms, and tossed them about this way and that, but there was no delicate way to say it. So, Dean had decided, he was going to say it in the bluntest form.

"Dean," Sam prompted. "What."

Dean took a breath. It took him a moment to force the words out of his throat, but when they did, they came fast, like it was all one word. "I'm in love with Zoey."

_What the fuck?_ Dean thought to himself. That was not what he'd planned to say. Right up to when the words had been pushing to get out his throat, he'd been sure he was going to tell Sam that Zoey was in love with him. But something made the words change at the last minute. Perhaps it was Dean's subconscious desire - or _need_ - to lie for his friend. Or maybe, even deeper into his subconscious, he really was in love with her. Adamently, he set his mind that it was most certainly the former. But he didn't tell Sam that.

Sam stared at Dean, shocked. For a few moments, he was speechless. "Seriously?" He spluttered at last.

Dean nodded. "Guilty as charged. But for God's sake, do not tell her that."

"She doesn't know?" For some reason, this surprised Sam even more. "Dean, you've gotta tell her. She's under the impression that you've been..." he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud "just because she's there."

"It started out like that," Dean said, beginning to spin the web of lies. "But after a while... I guess it became more than just sex. Sam, listen to me," he continued as his brother sighed and looked away for a moment. "This is our secret, okay? It's up to me to decide whether or not to tell her."

Sam nodded, reluctantly. "She's gonna find out sooner or later, Dean."

"I know. But that's my decision, not yours."

There was a pause. For Dean, it was too emotional (however fake those emotions were, he reminded himself) and tense. He was relieved when Sam finally suggested they should go back to the motel room. "Alright," Dean agreed. "Bitch."

"Jerk."

When they were back at the motel room, Zoey was nowhere to be seen. A moment of worry passed between the two brothers before they heard the toilet flush. Dean made a beeline for the bathroom - he had to explain his lies to Zoey before Sam could get a word in edgeways.

When Dean got into the bathroom, it pained him slightly to see how red her face was. Her eyes were swollen, and her nose blocked - evident by the fact she had her mouth open to breath. It was obvious she'd only just stopped crying. She looked up at him as he shut the door behind him, her eyes fearful of what had happened, yet anxious to know. Dean didn't see the point in making her suffer any longer.

The news shocked Zoey. Not because of what Dean had said to Sam - but because he had lied at all. She'd honestly expected him to spill the beans. She embraced him gratefully, being careful to be quiet in case Sam heard anything misleading.

"Thank you," she whispered gratefully. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

"Well, don't tell Sam," he whispered back, "he'll get bad ideas."

Zoey stifled a laugh. She was so relieved that Dean had lied to Sam in such a way. All to protect her. She hoped it wasn't because he really _was_ in love with her - now that would be complicated.


	11. Winchester

So much had happened in a few days. The trio had found both the demon they had been searching for for 22 years and, most importantly to Zoey, John. They had come so close to killing the demon, but it escaped - and to top it all off, a truck had pushed their car off the road and put Dean in a coma.

Zoey sighed. After the fast pace of previous days, these were slow. Nothing was happening - they were just waiting for Dean to wake up. She rested her head on Sam's shoulder for comfort. He took the hint, and put his arm around her, holding her close. For a few minutes there was silence, as Zoey breathed in Sam's scent and listened to his heartbeat.

The peaceful moment was interrupted when the door opened and John stepped through. He smiled at the sight of Sam and Zoey's embrace.

"Hey, Dad," Sam greeted him. "Any news?" He asked hopefully.

"No improvement," John grimaced. "Doctors say he might take weeks to recover."

Zoey leant forwards and put her face in her hands. Dean had still been mad at her over the whole sex thing. If he died now, she'd never be able to forgive herself.

"Sam, if you don't mind, I'd like a word in private with my daughter," John said, interrupting Zoey's train of thought. She smiled at the word. Daughter. As if this melodrama was normal between _siblings_ - a way in which she had never thought of Sam and Dean.

"Sure," Sam agreed, sounding slightly surprised. He kissed Zoey gently on the top of her head, making her blink twice in reaction. "I'll be with Dean," he told her, before leaving the room, shutting the door behind him.

John sat down where Sam had been sitting. "I see nothing much has changed," he said.

Zoey looked at him, frowning.

"Does he know yet?"

She realized what he was talking about. Of course John would know. He alway knew everything she was thinking. "No," she replied, looking down, biting her lip. "But you're wrong, you know. Things have changed." Zoey paused. Then she pressed on, "Sam doesn't know. But Dean does. He figured it out, and he was... he was so mad. But despite how angry he was? He still saved my ass."

"How?"

"We both knew he had to tell Sam something, but for some reason he still covered up for me. Now Sam's under the impression that Dean's in love with me."

"And is he?"

Zoey looked at John, wondering how he could even _consider_ that as a possibility. "I freakin' hope not!"

John raised his eyebrows. "Why not?"

"Because it would make everything way too complicated, John! I hate love triangles, the last thing I want is a real life one, let alone with me slap bang in the middle of it." She sat up and sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "What do you think?"

"About what?"

Zoey looked at him. She hated it when he played dumb. "Dean. Do you think he's in love with me?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if he was," John chose his words carefully. "But I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't."

"You're like a freakin' computer," she grumbled. "Full of codes," she explained in reply to his questioning look.

John chuckled and put his hand on her shoulder just like he would Sam or Dean. "You've come a long way from that frightened little child we found," he smiled. "Where did she go?"

"You beat her outta me!" Zoey joked.

"There's one thing that probably hasn't changed, and it has to. Promise me, Zoey."

She frowned. "Promise you what?"

John looked her in the eye seriously. "Don't blame yourself this time."

Zoey was taken aback. "What-?"

He held up a hand to silence her. "Promise me, Zoey."

"Okay," she agreed.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

John smiled. "You're a good kid, Zoey. I'm glad I took you in."

"Why?" She asked suddenly. "Why did you take me in? What made me so different from all the other quivering wrecks you saved?"

"At first? Because you had nowhere else to go. But after a while..." John looked away, a look in his eye. "I guess I just didn't wanna let you go." He stood up and went to leave the room, but he stopped with his hand on the handle. "If he loves you... you deserve each other, Zoey."

She nodded, though she was not quite sure exactly who he was talking about, and he left the room. She sat still for a few minutes, then like a lightbulb over her head, she realized why he had said what he had said.

"John," she whispered, then she jumped up and ran to the door. "JOHN!" She shouted, but he was already long gone. Immediately, Zoey sprinted down the hallway. and swung the door open to Dean's room. To her utmost surprise, he was awake. "Dean!" She gasped in relief, and she pulled him into a hug. "I thought I'd lost you," she whispered.

"You ain't getting rid of me that easily," he smiled. "You can let go of me now, I'm suffocating."

She let him lay back down reluctantly. Her joy at seeing Dean conscious again had clouded her thoughts, but she quickly remembered why she had burst into the room as she had.

"We need to find John," she said urgently. "I think he's about to do something real stupid." Zoey grabbed Sam, knowing Dean couldn't get out of the bed yet, and pulled him out of the room. "Check every room," she told him. "I'll go this way."

"Woah, woah, Zoey." Sam grabbed her arm. "What's going on?"

"Dean's recovery isn't a miracle, Sam!" She shouted, cueing a passing nurse to shush them. In a lower tone, Zoey continued, "I think John exchanged Dean's life for his."

A look of alarm spread across Sam's face. He relaxed his grip on her arm, and she immediately rushed off in one direction. She could hear Sam running off the other way.

A door was wide open. Something told Zoey not to ignore it. She skilled to a halt just outside and, sure enough, John was lying on the floor. "No," Zoey whispered, rushing over to him. He was face down, so she turned him over. He wasn't lifeless, but he was damn near it. "John," she said, in a fruitless attempt to make him move or say something. "HELP!" She shouted, desperate to get him medical attention. "SOMEBODY HELP!"

Zoey looked back at John. "Please don't go," she murmured, shaking his body slightly to try and wake him up. "Dad..." she whispered for the first time. "Please. This can't happen to me again."

Everything happened in slow motion. Doctors came and picked John up, and strapped him to a life support machine. The boys had heard Zoey shouting and followed (Dean much to the protest of his doctor), and Zoey stood, a Winchester on either side, as the doctors tried fruitlessly to save the oldest Winchester's life. She slipped her hand into Sam's and he squeezed it as the dreaded sound echoed through their eardrums.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

It was flatline.

Dean's hand slid into Zoey's. A tear fell down her cheek and her ribcage shook as she held onto the only two people she had left in the world.


	12. Stella By Starlight

The sky was pitch black and cloudless, each dotted star clearly visible. God only knew what time it was, but it had to be past midnight. A park stood almost empty, the swings and the roundabouts silent for the night, resting before their work the next day. It was quiet - the only noises audible were that of a car passing every now and again, and the squeaking of a swing as one lonely figure sat on it, spinning round and round mindlessly, her eyes focused on the floor.

Zoey swung to a stop. She was about to twist the chains again when another figure sat on the swing next to her. From the corner of her eye, she quickly surmised from the silhouette who had joined her.

"Hi, Dean," she said monotonously as she began to twist the chains again.

"Hey, Zoey," he sighed, leaning back as he rocked his own swing back and forth.

"How did you find me?"

"I have a super sensitive sense of smell."

"Ha ha."

Their banter wasn't like it usually was. It was the same on paper, but neither of them expressed any emotion. They were like robots. Or Kristen Stewart.

Dean considered how to say what he was going to say, knowing Zoey wouldn't push any further on his following her. Neither of them had the heart to say more than they had to.

"Dad told me something before he died," he told her. Zoey just nodded, not overly interested. "Something about you."

She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing and continued twisting.

"He said I should only tell you if I really need to, but I don't see the point in listening to him anymore, considering where that's got us."

Still no response.

"He told me you have a sister."

This grabbed Zoey's attention. She froze, and the swing spun around 5 times before coming to a halt. The breeze increased for a moment, and an empty cola can went past Zoey's feet at a tangent, then bounced off Dean's and went under the slide.

"A _what_?"

Dean handed her a crumpled up piece of paper. "I didn't read it."

Zoey took it with hesitation. Her finger touched Dean's lightly as she did so, making him draw his hand back immediately. He'd made sure not to touch her ever since that night in New York. Sensing he was thinking about it too, Zoey quickly opened up the piece of paper. It had a name, date of birth, telephone number and address.

"Son of a bitch," she cursed as she crumpled the note in her hand. "I don't understand." Zoey leant forwards, resting her elbows on her knees. "Why the hell would John want me to know about her?"

"Beats me," Dean shrugged. He stood up, seemingly eager to get away from her as soon as he had delivered the message. "I should go check on Sam," he excused himself. "Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

Zoey nodded, her thoughts still trying to make some shape of themselves as she realized how tired she was.

Dean began to walk back to the car he'd borrowed from Bobby. He stopped just as he reached the park gate, looking at Zoey's back. She looked like a wax statue. Not even the swing was moving. He sighed. Part of him wanted to hate her, but part of him wanted to tell her everything was gonna be okay. He felt like he should say something - what? Don't stay out too late? Don't do anything stupid? Does she want a lift back? None of these seemed right. Dean turned around, and made his way back to the crappy old car, making a resolve to start work on the Impala the next morning.

An old engine wheezed into life, and begrudgingly began to move, fading further into the distance. Zoey looked at the paper again.

**Stacey Marie Maynard**

**28 July 1981**

**609-804-3655**

**1186 Watson Street**

**Egg Harbor City, NJ 08215**

Something - probably the inclusion of contact details - told her John wanted her to contact her sister. Indeed Zoey was curious - why hadn't she heard about this sister before? Why had she lived somewhere else?

Sighing, Zoey folded up the crumpled paper as best she could and slid it in her back pocket and started making her way back to her borrowed car. There was a faint orange glow on the horizon and Zoey was exhausted. She knew she wouldn't be able to make it back to Bobby's without falling asleep at the wheel, so she sent a quick text to Sam asking him to pick her up. Knowing he probably wouldn't get it 'til morning, she sat down in the car to wait for him. She was so exhausted that she fell asleep pretty quickly. And so exhausted she hadn't realized Stacey's birthday was exactly one month after her own.

Zoey jumped, her instincts shouting danger, as a sharp knock on the window woke her up. She heard muffled laughter behind her, and turned around as she sat up. Sam was there, having received her text, and the sun was out. It was still rather early, 6am according to the car radio's clock. A boy rode by on his bicycle, a bag of newspaper attached to the front, and an old lady hobbled up to the recycling bank with a plastic bag full of glass bottles.

"You're here earlier than I thought," Zoey said as she opened the door. "I don't entirely trust you with being on time."

"Then why did you text me?"

"Didn't wanna make Dean turn around, and I don't have Bobby's number." It was a lie. She had his number. She just wanted Sam to come.

"Still tired?"

"Not really."

"C'mon then." In one strong scoop, he picked Zoey up from the car seat and stood her on the ground, shutting the car door with a kick of his foot.

"What, you just gonna leave the car there? Bobby'll be pissed, y'know. He likes that car."

"Nah, we'll pick it up after."

Zoey looked at Sam suspisciously. "After what?"

He offered his arm like Mr Darcy might. "Miss Maynard, would you do me the honour of accompanying me to Starbucks?"

Zoey grinned and placed her hand on his arm. "Why, Mr Winchester, I would be honoured!"

Sam opened the passenger seat to his car and bowed as she climbed in, then shut it as he walked around to the other side and climbed into his seat.

"You know I hate coffee, right?" She reminded him.

"I know," he smiled. "But hot chocolate looks just like it."


	13. Stacey

**AN: over 2000 words! Whoo, I'm awesome. If any of you didn't already know, I vid as well as write, and I've made a couple of vids and many collab parts with Zoey and a couple with Stacey. I use Michelle Rodriguez as Zoey (and sometimes Billie Piper or Anna Torv... I'd explain why, but that'd give the plot away. ^_^) and Gillian Jacobs as Stacey. Here's my channel if anyone wants to have a look: .com/user/BelleMacFarlane and if you're gonna sub it, make sure you sub my backup too, .com/user/TheMishaMinion =)**

"A sister, huh?" Sam mused. "You gonna contact her?"

Zoey bit her lip, unsure. "I don't know," she admitted. "I mean, what if she's estranged, if that's why I haven't heard of her before, would she even wanna know me? And another thing, why would I wanna bring anyone into our world, especially my own sister?"

"Dad obviously wanted you to know for a reason. Maybe that reason is he wants her in your life."

Zoey looked up at him darkly. "Then John hasn't learnt a damn thing from losing you."

"Whatever his motive... I think you should at least look her up."

"What is _with_ you lately, Sam? You and John never agreed on a damn thing, but now that he's dead, you seem to follow his 'wishes' like a damn puppy dog. You're just like Dean."

"My father is dead, Zoey," he reminded her firmly. "You know how that feels. Didn't you wanna satisfy your father when he died?"

"My dad wanted me to get some fancy degree and make lots of money. I dropped out of school and my only source of income is Dean's credit card fraud and pool hustling."

Sam poked at his untouched cheesecake. "I guess there's no way to convince you. And I fully respect that."

He left his speech hanging, as if there was something else he wanted to add.

"Why did you bring me here, Sam?" Zoey asked. "It wasn't to talk about Stacey or John, and it certainly wasn't to poke at a slice of cheesecake."

"I just wanted to apologize," he replied, not making eye contact. "For what I said in New York. I didn't mean any of it, I just... well, y'know, you were..."

"Having sex with your brother?" She suggested, a slight smile on her face. "Yeah, your reaction is understandable. If it's any comfort, Dean hasn't touched me in private since. And he's never made eye contact with me."

"Yeah, well..." Sam grimaced. "There may be more than one reason for that."

"I assume you're referring to the fact he's in love with me?" She smirked as Sam's eyes shot up to her. But inside, she was hating herself for fuelling the flames of Dean's lie. "Yeah, he told me. Just after he told him a lot of guts to do it."

"And... do you love him? Because if you do... I'm fine if something happens between you two."

"No," Zoey denied quickly. "I just... I can't see him as anything more than a friend, you know? And honestly, I wouldn't change that for the world." She paused. "Sam, I... I'd appreciate it if we didn't talk about this again. Whatever happens is between me and Dean, and if something happens that you ought to know about, you'll know. But 'til then... can you just leave it to us?"

Sam nodded, understanding. "Of course, Zo."

"Not you too!"

"Sorry!" He laughed. "It slipped out. _Zoey_."

She smiled as Sam corrected himself. "You're a good friend, Sam," Zoey said as she tentatively slid her hand into his over the table. He squeezed it back firmly. "Thank you."

"'Course," he smiled back. "C'mon, let's get you back to Bobby's."

They stood up and made their way out, leaving behind their untouched food. Neither noticed an elderly couple wathcing them as they left.

"Either that boy is simple-minded or just in denial," said the old woman. "Anyone can see how that girl looks at him."

Her husband nodded in agreement as he watched them walk away. "Aye, 'tis a sad sight to see when Cupid's one arrow short."

* * *

It's funny. I never thought this would happen.

I guess anyone who believed it would be a madman. And when my half-sister first came to see me at the orphanage, I thought it was a dream. All my family were dead, or so I thought. So then I figured I must be insane.

But unless this is all a fantasy in my head and I'm actually in an asylum muttering to myself in the corner about spooks and ghoulies, I'm perfectly sane. My sister was only presumed dead, and it turns out they were wrong about her.

And now here I am, wondering if all insane people are actually sane, it's just htat nobofy believes them. Because nobody would believe this. I'd be locked away pretty quickly if I breathed a word of it to anyone. Hell, I wanted to lock my sister away when she tried to explain her world. Someimes I wish she hadn't, and I'd lived the rest of my life thinking she just didn't want me. But she's my sister. And I'll stick by her through and through.

* * *

When Zoey discovered the address for Stacey that John had given her was an orphanage, she suddenly had three men trying to convince her to go. It's Dad's wishes, Sam said. She can stay with me, Bobby said. She might be hot, Dean said. But none of these reasons made her decide to go. Especially not Dean's. In the end, it was her own morbid curiosity that had Zoey climbing into Bobby's knackard orange truck - one of the only vehicles he had that didn't whine when drived. Although the Impala was fixed by now, Sam and Dean were planning on going hunting soon, and Zoey decided they should go without her while she found Stacey.

This was why Zoey hugged the boys goodbye before they drove off and the Impala disappeared into the distance. She promised Bobby she'd call once she had a plan, climbed into the truck and drove off in the opposite direction to where Sam and Dean had gone.

It took her almost a whole day to reach New Jersey, with nobody to keep her company except the soothing tunes of Frank Sinatra on a cassette she'd found in the glove box. "And if here's nothing shaking come this here July," she sang along as she passed the state border into Illinois. She saw Rock Island out of the window, thinking how pretty it looked. "I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die... my, my..."

Sinatra's final, powerful note of the song was drowned out by Zoey's stomach rumbling. She hadn't realized that it was past midday and she hadn't yet eaten. Suddenly really hungry, Zoey decided to look for a diner.

She remembered a college student she had met while on a hunt in Illinois, had mentioned a Buffalo Wild Wings on 16th Street. She parked the truck in the Toys 'R' Us parking lot opposite, impressed that it had only complained once, and that was when it had been low on fuel.

Inside Buffalo Wild Wings, Zoey sat down with her traditional bacon cheddar burger and casually picked up a newspaper that had been left on the seat beside her. She flicked through it, realizing how out of sync hunting had left her. Not that much had changed - Bush was destroying the country one stupid act ata time, everything was way too expensive these days, little schoolkids were putting on a production of Beauty and the Beast, and some old man had been beaten to death by some youths.

Automatically, Zoey read the obituaries when she reached them. There wasn't even a good hunt, everyone died from natural causes. What a boring town, she thought. No ghosts, no possessions, nothing. Maybe it was better for her to leave Stacey after all. She'd be safer away from Sioux Falls, even if Bobby was there. But then, she had come this far. All the way to Illinois in the old truck and not even halfway there, she couldn't turn back now without what she had left for.

* * *

The sun was beaming down across the floor through a slit in the curtains. Stacey coughed herself awake, as she did most mornings for some reason, and had done for as long as she could remember.

Surprisingly, the orphanage was quiet. Stacey looked over at the digital clock, and jumped up when it read 14:36. As she threw on the first jeans and t-shirt she could get her hands on, she cursed herself for staying up late watching CSI: New York.

"Why have I only just woken up?" She asked abrasively as she entered the kitchen and began rummaging around for food.

"Good afternoon to you too," replied Sue, the orphanage's owner, who was organizing the herbs and spices rack. "I wondered when you'd get up. In answer to your question, I couldn't wake you. You were fast asleep. Also you've got a visitor."

Stacey looked up at this, hopeful it might be the cute guy she met in the park the other day. "Really?"

"She's in the lounge."

Disappointed it wasn't the cute guy, Stacey made her way into the lounge and saw a woman, who couldn't be much older than herself, leaning against a wall, her fingers a blur against the keypad of her cell phone. Stacey cleared her throat, and the woman looked up.

"Are you Stacey?" She asked, with a rather raspy voice. Stacey nodded. "I'm Zoey," the woman introduced herself, putting her cell into her pocket and shaking Stacey's hand.

"Zoey who?" Stacey asked. She always liked to know people's surnames. A first name was just a first name, there was always someone else in the world with the same first name as you. But a surname singled you out from all the others.

Zoey inhaled, seemingly hesitant to answer. "Zoey Maynard. I... well, I'm your sister."

This, Stacey didn't expect. A memory came into her mind - her 18th birthday. She was finally allowed to know about her real family. Which hadn't amounted to much, as they were all dead. She could recall, as clear as day, reading that her father had had one other child with a woman that wasn't Stacey's mother.

"But... you're dead," Stacey frowned. "When I was 18, I found out who my family were. It said they were all dead."

"If I'm dead, how am I here now?" Zoey raised her eyebrows in the same way Stacey did. "All the officials know is I went missing on a camping trip with my parents and we were never found again."

"So... you survived? My... our dad. Did he survive too?"

Zoey shook her head sadly. "No. Mom and Dad were killed, but I was saved."

"From what?"

"That's a different story," Zoey said quickly, trying to shake the question off. "The point is, I found out about you, and that you live in an orphanage, and I wanted to make sure you were happy here. I know people who would be happy to take you in if you wanted."

Stacey casually kicked the door shut. "I hate it here," she admitted. "It's noisy and everyone else is a kid, the only person I can talk to is Sue, and she's ancient."

Before anything more could be said, Zoey's phone began to ring, and she whipped it out of her pocket and answered it without even looking at the caller ID. She turned away, and had a quiet, hurried conversation.

"This had better be real good," Zoey whispered. She wasn't sure if Stacey could hear or not, but hoped she'd at least get the message not to listen.

"Zoey, I need your help."

"Alona?" Zoey recognized the voice immediately. It was Alona Forester, a hunter and old friend of Bobby's who she, Sam and Dean had hunted with in New Orleans one time.

"No, it's her evil twin Marilyn. Mwahaha."

"Funny. What do you want?"

"Ooh, rude. I hate to ask for help, but Bobby's not in so you're the next on my list to call. Best if I explain this in person, can you come to Delaware?"

"New Jersey Delaware?"

"Is there any other?"

"Yes, there's a whole state called Delaware."

"...oh yeah. Anyway, I'm in New Jersey. Can you get here?"

"Lucky for you, I'm in Egg Harbor City, so I'm about three hours away."

"I'll take that as a yes. I'm at the Hunter's Lodge, Route 46. Under the name Sally Applebee."

"That sounds like the name of one of those really anonying cutsie housewives who bakes apple pies all the time."

"Plum pies actually."

"Yummy. Alright, I'll get there as fast as I can."

Zoey hung up, irritated that her plans had been interrupted. "I gotta go," she hissed angrily. "Seriously consider if you hate it here as much as you say you do, 'cos I'm not taking you out of a good life. See you around, Stacey."

With that, Zoey left, climbed into Bobby's truck, and drove off to Delaware. Stacey was stunned at Zoey's rapid departure, wondering what she could have meant by her "world".

**AN: This note is at the bottom so Alona's appearence would be a surprise ;) she's my friend Elyse's OC, whose story can be found here: .net/s/5970157/1/Beauty_From_Pain =) Elyse vids too, and uses Ellen Page to play Alona. her vids can be seen here: .com/user/Elphiyero10**


	14. Semantics

Zoey was getting bored, now, of driving around so much. So she was relieved when she had finally arrived in Delaware and Alona was filling her in on the hunt she was on.

"Route 55 was reconstructed in 1983, after several unsuccessful lawsuits to stop the project," she was explaining as they say in a booth at a quiet bar. "After the lawsuits, a couple of incidents happened to construction workers, including a worker being run over by an asphalt truck, another being blown off a bridge by strong winds, and a van carrying five construction workers randomly erupting into flames."

"They find a cause?" Zoey asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Rumour has it, the road went straight over an Ancient Indian burial ground," Alona told her, sounding only too eager about the subject. "They're removing call boxes right now, so the wires being pulled up is bound to provoke some spirits. Sound good to you?"

"Yup," Zoey nodded. "Just one thing, though. Why do you need my help?"

"I don't," Alona admitted. "When I called Bobby for some info on the tribe, he told me you were in New Jersey too. So I figured, why not drag you over?"

Zoey smiled. It had certainly been a while since she'd seen her friend. "So," she said, sitting up. It was a bit strange doing this without Sam or Dean around. "What did Bobby tell you about this tribe?"

"They were called the Unilachtigo tribe - means the people who lived by the ocean. The Delaware Indians or 'Lenni Lenape' are often said to be extinct, but in fact there are 11 000 Lenape people in Oklahoma, where they were sent by the US government, and another 5 000 Lenape Indian descendants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. There are also 3 000 Minsee Delawares in Ontario and Wisconsin, and around 1 000 Nanticokes in Delaware. When the Europeans arrived, like many native tribes, the Lenapes were first decimated by European diseases, then those who survived were driven west by British and American expansion, hence many of the descendants living in Oklahoma, or scattered around their own traditional lands or along the westward routes."

"Wow," was all Zoey could say after Alona had finished talking. "Thanks for that, I'vee forgotten how to brush my teeth now."

"How are the boys?" Alona asked conversationally, sitting back.

"They're going through some tough shit right now," Zoey grimaced. "Their dad died. It's hard for me too, that man saved my ass, but... y'know he was their dad. It's hard when a parent dies."

"So they lost both their parents now?"

Zoey nodded. "Yeah, I guess we're all in the same boat now. I know how it felt for them now, being around me when mine died. Sam only seems to wanna obey John, and Dean... he's angry. Just really angry. I think he blames himself. He doesn't wanna admit he's upset, but he is. He smashed up the Impala the other day, and he can't be alone in the same room as me for more than a minute."

"That why you came to New Jersey?"

"No," Zoey replied, "I came on my own mission. Turns out I have a sister over in Egg Harbour City. I was talking to her when you phoned. She doesn't seem terribly unhappy where she is right now, but... I just wanted her to know I'm alive - turns out she knew about me, but thought I was dead. Tent torn up, bodies missing. What else are people gonna think?"

After catching up, Zoey and Alona were straight onto the job. It turned out someone had died that morning on route 55 when they stepped on a penknife blade and bled out. Fake IDs at the ready, Officers "Parkes" and "Conrad" arrived at the work site, and began snooping around the area.

Alona found what looked like a white stone half-buried in the dirt, and called Zoey over. "Stone or skull, d'ya think?"

"I've seen enough of those in my lifetime to know it's a skull. Don't touch it or you will awaken an ancient curse," she said in an ominous voice. "And the Native American spirits will haunt you until you die a horrible, painful death."

"What turned you so emo?" Alona whispered dramatically.

"When you've seen the things I'vee seen..."

"Like Dean naked?"

"Shut up." Zoey stood up. "We need to stop this lot before they dig anything up. As far as I know, there's no way to stop a Native American curse except to live it through. You know me and the boys experienced one once?" She spoke conversationally as they walked. "The insects and bugs rose up and attacked this one house. We got attacked by a huge swarm of wasps in an attic. God knows how we survived. Dean had a bug spray, but I don't think it did much good." She looked at Alona, who had a thoughtful expression on her face. "What?"

"Nothing," she shrugged. "It's just... you talk about Dean a lot. You've only mentioned Sam once."

"So?"

"Your reaction to my comment about seeing Dean naked does make one wonder," she suggested casually. Zoey remained silent. "...you didn't? Oh my God, Zoey! I saw some back-and-forth there, but I always thought it'd be you and Sam."

"I don't wanna talk about it..."

"I did too, y'know. There's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Alona," Zoey asserted as they came to a halt. "I don't want to talk about it." She turned to the man in charge of the construction. "Sir, I'm afraid we're gonna have to ask you to cease operation immediately."

"Excuse me?" He asked in disbelief.

"We believe this site is built on an Ancient Indian burial ground, which must not be disturbed," Alona explained.

"Alright," he sighed. "I'll talk to the boss."

"That was exciting," Alona said sarcastically as they walked off.

"Prevention is better than cure," Zoey reminded her.

"Yeah, but when I called you, I thought we could be like, some sort of kick-ass female duo."

"Trust me, I'm just as disappointed as you are that we're not nearly dying. There's nothing I'd love more than to die on my first hunt without the boys," Zoey said as she tripped over her own feel and nearly fell, but caught herself just in time. "There you go, I could have died if I'd fallen and hit my head at just the right angle. Exciting enough for you?"

Alona smirked. "No. Maybe if it happened twice." She pushed Zoey playfully but Zoey, not knowing it was coming, fell against a tool kit and tripped for real. Her head knocked against the side of the road and everything went black.

The first thing Zoey noticed was that there was nothing to notice.

It was just... empty. White. She spun around on what she thought was the spot, but she couldn't feel anything below her feet. But it wasn't like she was floating... it was more like she was standing on nothing. She took a step forward, and found that wherever she stopped her feet, she stood there.

A hand touched her shoulder. Zoey looked around and saw a man standing behind her, staring at her intensely. His face was completely new to her, but somehow he seemed familiar.

"Hello, Zoey," he greeted her.

She took a step back cautiously. "Who are you?"

The man smiled at her caution. "My name is Gabriel. I'm... well, let's just say I'm your guardian angel."

"My... my what? Where am I?"

"Nowhere," he said casually. "Your in the very depths of your mind. Think of it like a walk-in DVD, and your life is the film." Gabriel began to walk around the emptiness. "Let's try the scene selection, shall we? There's a few scenes I want us to watch back." He raised his hand and suddenly, the white wasn't gone, but it transformed. Colour appeared, and shapes, and the ground. They were in a motel room. Zoey recognized herself, slightly younger and sitting on the bed, deep in thought.

"She can't see us," Gabriel told her. "We can smell, feel, hear and see everything that's happening, but we can't change anything. Do you recognize this scene?"

Zoey shook her head. "I'vee been in a lot of motel rooms. This could be any of them."

Just then, there was a rattling as someone unlocked the motel door. Dream!Zoey stood up, seeming to brace herself for something, and went over to the door, just as a younger Dean stepped through. Before he was halfway through, however, dream!Zoey was already kissing him. He was shocked for a moment, but collected himself and kissed her back, shutting the door. Things got more and more heated, but before they went any further, the scene froze, seemingly at Gabriel's command. He looked at Zoey, waiting for her to figure out what they were seeing.

"This is the first time I slept with Dean," she said. "I... I don't understand. Why are you showing me this?"

"You'll see," Gabriel replied mysteriously. "Let's fast-forward."

The next thing they knew, they were in a dark alleyway. Another Zoey, this a little older than the last, was there, hanging up her phone, her face contorted in frustration.

"Sam had just told me how in love he was with Jessica," Zoey said, remembering this scene perfectly.

"How did it feel?"

Zoey looked at the 'guardian angel'. "Look at my face. It fucking hurt. Real bad."

Dean then appeared from around the corner. Dream!Zoey turned around, putting her phone away, and instantly changing her mood.

"You okay, Zo? You've been gone ages," he asked with concern.

"I'm fine," dream!Zoey smiled in reply, going up to Dean and putting her hand on his cheek. "It was getting a bit hot in there... I just wanted to cool off. But you're really not helping right now..." She'd been moving ever closer to him as she spoke, and now her face was only a few centimetres from his. It was Dean who made the kiss this time. The scene paused as Zoey stepped closer to her dream self and Dean, looking at them. She hadn't noticed at the time, but now she was seeing the scene from an outside view, she could see Dean's face. He looked like he was letting a lot of frustration out by kissing her. She could tell something was up. Gabriel was showing her something... something about Dean. But she wasn't quite sure what it was yet.

The scene changed again. They were back in a motel room. Zoey immediately recognized, as her dream self began kissing Dean yet again, when they were.

"This was only a few months ago," she mused aloud. "When he realized..."

This time, Gabriel allowed the scene to continue playing out as dream!Zoey and Dean moved over to the bed and things got hotter. It only paused when things were getting far too hot.

"Look at his body language," Gabriel pointed out. Zoey walked over to the bed, still not quite used to watching herself and Dean at it. "His body's closer to yours than it would be if he were with any other girl. He's making eye contact with you more. And his kisses are deeper." Gabriel saw the pieces beginning to slot together in Zoey's mind. But she needed one more gentle nudge. "Zoey. He's not having sex with you. He's closer to drinking tea with a rhinoceros than having sex."

She nodded slowly, understanding. "He's making love to me..."

Gabriel smiled, and the scene disappeared. The white was back. "I'm glad you figured it out then," he admitted. "I didn't wanna show you the next scene... let's just say it involved you without your being there."

Zoey looked at him. "That is disgusting."

"Let's get you back," Gabriel said. He and the white began to fade away. His voice began to trail away, but not before Zoey heard the rest. "You've got a lot ahead of you, Zoey. Be careful. And stick close to your friends. You're gonna need them."


	15. Ground Zero

**AN: This chapter is a little different. I thought y'all might like to know more about Zoey's relationship with the boys leading up to the start of the fic, so I wrote a study. I might do the same later for from the start of the fic to now. Or not. Depends how I feel about it.**

Although we haven't explored it yet, as teenagers Dean and Zoey were always clashing. From the get go I've described Zoey as a female Dean - largely to make her the polar opposite of my Lost OC, Carrie. She's stubborn and brutal, and as a teenager she was quite bitchy - but she had a right to be. It was her defence mechanism against the fact her parents were dead and she was now travelling motel to motel with two boys and their dad.

The fact she was surrounded by so much testosterone meant she learnt things the manly way - she hugs like a man, and she hides her feelings like a man. While she is in fact straight, she occasionally slept with women when she was older because there was never any encouragement to go for a man, only women. It's rather like how Mowgli was raised with wolves, so he learnt things the wolf way - Zoey was raised by men, so she learnt things the manly way. I know this from my own personal experience - I was raised as the youngest child, amongst men, and I've learnt a lot of things the way men have.

So all of this + Dean's very similar tough boy act as a teenager = ARGUMENT AFTER ARGUMENT AFTER ARGUMENT.

Therefore this eliminated her looking at Dean as a potential love interest before she was even old enough to understand this kind of thing. So when she was 16/17, and she was old enough for her close relationships with the boys to become anything more, Dean was very much out of the picture. Having subconsciously taught herself similar personalities don't go together, 1+1 went together and her mind pieced together that opposites must attract.

This is the point at which she started falling for Sam. He was completely the opposite to her - open and honest, and after all her fights with Dean, she was drawn to Sam. After all, she and Sam never fought or even shouted at each other. He was protective of her, unlike Dean who didn't seem to care much about her. Most of my readers seem to be more Dean/Zoey fans than Sam/Zoey, but it still makes complete sense that she would fall in love with the youngest. While most of her world was full of angst, when with Sam things were a lot easier for her. She has moments with him, and will continue to have them in the future, where all they do is talk and she can feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off her shoulders, even just briefly. She loved the feeling she got while with him, so she naturally fell in love with him.

As the trio grew older and matured, Dean and Zoey stopped arguing so much. They hunted together for a while, while Sam was at Stanford and John wandered off on his own as we know he loves to do so much. Their arguments turned into chemistry and a great back-and-forth (but no hair whipping). Dean began to see Zoey as a sexual prospect, and began to flirt with her. Having never seen him that way, she ignores his signals. After her heart is broken as Sam starts dating Jessica, Zoey sleeps with Dean out of her own frustration at not just Sam, but also herself and Dean. She knows that Dean doesn't see sex as anything connected to love or any emotion other than lust, so she doesn't think twice about the fact she is using him.

What neither of them realize is the developing bond between them as they spend more time together, hunting. Dean becomes more protective of Zoey, realizing he cares about her a lot, but thinking it's only because they're spending so much time together, not knowing he's falling in love with her.

Zoey, meanwhile, is not falling in love with Dean - she's still too hung up on Sam. This is because she still calls Sam and discusses his college work and (painfully for her) Jessica with him. Perhaps if she'd stopped calling him, she might have felt something of a similar nature towards Dean. However, she ended up parting ways with Dean and being plonked a few streets away from Sam and Jessica by John. She got a normal job and spent some time in a daily routine, while brooding over Sam.


	16. Yo Ho, Yo Ho

The sun was falling in a straight line through the window, landing in an exact square shape on the floor at the foot of a hospital bed. Tiny specks of dust floated around where the sun was pouring in. The room was quiet, almost silent. A doctor or a nurse, who were around the hospital every day, wouldn't hear the sound of the heart rate monitor, and someone who was listening carefully would hear the sound of breathing. Someone with very good hearing would hear two people breathing.

One of them, a woman, was lying in the hospital bed where the sunlight was falling next to. Her eyes were shut, and the heart rate monitor was strapped up to her arm, measuring a normal heart rate. White cotton bandages embraced the top of her head, looking like she was wearing a tight white hat. Although it was not visible unless she were turned over, there was a small patch of blood at the back of her head, staining the bandages, from where she had fallen.

The other person in the room was sitting on a chair next to the hospital bed. Unbeknown to the bed's occupant, he was holding her hand, and had been for several hours. His other arm rested on the edge of the bed, as he used it as a pillow and slept slouched on the chair. He had slight cramp pains in his back from the awkward position he was in, and he hadn't showered in a few days.

The heart rate monitor increased its beeping very slightly, and ambiguously, Zoey Maynard's eyes fluttered open.

It took her a few moments to realize where she was, and a few more after that to remember why she was there. She'd taken a serious fall when her friend Alona had accidentally made her trip and hit her head. The next thing she'd known, Zoey was being led through her memories as an observer, by a man named Gabriel, who claimed to be her guardian angel – whatever that meant. As she regained feeling throughout her body, Zoey realized someone's sweaty palm was in hers. She moved her head to the left, and smiled to herself when she saw her long-time best friend, and occasional lover (although that was in the past), Dean Winchester. Zoey could smell that he hadn't washed for a while, and his sweaty palm in hers probably hadn't moved for a while. She laughed slightly to herself at the thought that Dean had fallen asleep at her bedside, his hand in hers. He wasn't the holding hands type, and the fact he had fallen asleep like that was touching to her. The sound of her small laugh made him stir, and realizing he was probably only lightly sleeping, Zoey muttered, "Dean?" She surprised herself with how hoarse her voice was, as if she hadn't spoken for a long time. But she was sure she'd only been asleep for a few hours.

Dean awoke at the sound of her voice. Blinking as he woke, he lifted his head and looked up at Zoey. He smiled with relief when he saw she was awake. "Zoey," he whispered. "I thought you'd never wake."

"I was feeling a bit lazy," she joked, "lying around for so long. How long was I asleep for?" She had the feeling she'd been asleep for more than it had felt.

"A week," Dean replied. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Yeah, I remember everything." Zoey suddenly remembered something. "Hey, where're Alona and Stacey?"

"They're outside," he told her. "Sam's out there too, he was quite intrigued to talk to Stacey. I guess he sees her as the him to your me."

"Bet you were glad to see Alona again," Zoey smirked, remembering Dean's past fling with her.

"I was definitely surprised when she called me," he agreed. "She told me what happened. Sam was hesitant about coming, he said you could cope without us. But I insisted we came. We got here about five days ago."

"Is that why you stink so bad?"

Dean laughed. "Yeah, I…" he hesitated, not wanting Zoey to over interpret what he was saying, but he knew her, and knew she wouldn't think too much of it, so he continued, "I've been here since we arrived. The nurses kept trying to get me to move, but I couldn't leave you."

This touched Zoey more than the idea he'd fallen asleep with her hand in his – which he still had a hold of. He really cared about her as much as Gabriel had implied. But even he couldn't see it, and it had taken a week in a coma and inception from a guardian angel for Zoey to see it. She knew, by now, how badly she had treated him – neither of them not quite understanding what had been happening each time they were intimate.

"Listen, Dean…" she began. His expression changed slightly, to what Zoey knew as the 'no chick flick moments' face. "I know you hate chick flick moments, but just let me speak, okay?" He nodded, and she continued, "I messed up. Big time. And I'm not gonna try and make excuses, and I don't expect you to forgive me. But while I was asleep, I kinda realized… I've treated you real bad. I used you, and it wasn't right of me… I was so blinded by what I wanted, I never stopped to think twice about you. What you did for me – protecting me from telling Sam how I feel about him – was a really tough thing for you to do, I know because I know you, Dean. Letting Sam think you have feelings for me just so I don't have to let him know I have feelings for him is probably one of the last things in the world you would ever want to do, yet you did it without hesitation, because you care about me, and I've been too freakin' dumb to realize just what big a sacrifice you were making for me."

As she finished saying all she could think of to say, Dean sat himself on the side of the bed and put his hand on her shoulder, not looking her in the eye. "Zoey, I… I don't know how we got here. Maybe it all came out of nowhere, maybe it all built up over time. But I know neither of us like it. Face it, we're both good at hiding our emotions, even to ourselves – so whatever you may feel for Sam, you're twenty five now, and you're old enough to make your own decisions about him. If you get together with him, that's fine with me, but if you don't… don't make too much drama of it, Zo, I know you're not a drama queen, but just don't."

Zoey gave a small laugh. Oh Dean, she thought, always trying to keep drama to a minimum. "Okay," she agreed, a smile still on her face. "Fair deuce. Now gimme a hug."

"With pleasure," he smirked, and Zoey shifted herself upright so they could wrap their arms around each other in a tight embrace.

"There's a lesson to be learned from all of this," Zoey said.

"Oh, really? And what's that?"

"I'm a selfish bitch."

Dean laughed. A proper belly laugh, which Zoey could feel through his body. "You really are, Zoey Maynard. But I guess I forgive you for that. After all, who raised you?"

Just then, the door opened and their embrace was relaxed, though their hands remained on each other's arms, as Sam came in. He grinned with relief as he saw Zoey was awake.

"Hey, Zoey," he smiled as he came over and sat in the chair Dean had previously been sat it. "How you doing?"

"Good," she replied, smiling. She was really happy to see him - she always felt her heart lift when Sam came in the room. "I heard you didn't wanna come. Dean had to convince you to come."

"I did wanna come," Sam assured her, throwing a brief bitchface at Dean. "But I know you can cope without us."

"Yeah, 'cos she's done so well." Dean spoke sarcastically to his brother. "I'm sure that blood-stained bandage on her head is just for decoration."

"What's wrong with my hat?" Zoey asked with mock hurt, raising a hand to the bandages on her head. "They told me it looked perfect on me."

"You look like a pirate," came a familiar, casual voice at the door. Alona Forester was standing in the doorway, and Stacey shadowed her.

"Thanks, Woody," Zoey smirked, making up a nickname for Alona on the spot. Forester… forest… wood. Okay, it wasn't great. But Zoey had suffered a serious blow to the head, she wasn't at her wittiest right now. "Yarr, arhh, why is the rum always gone, etcetera." She leaned forwards to get a better view of her sister. "Hey, Stace."

"Hey," Stacey smiled as she and Alona came into the room properly, pulling over two chairs from besides another, empty bed. "I gotta say, you really outdid yourself."

"I _think_ that's a compliment," Zoey laughed. "What happened with that burial ground?" Before she'd been knocked out, Zoey had been on a job with Alona, investigating an ancient Indian burial ground a road was built over.

"We sorted it out," Alona said proudly.

"_We_?" If there was anything Zoey was protective of, it was jobs. She felt that once a hunter or hunters got onto a job, it should be left to them, and not intervened with by any other hunters, unless the hunter on the job were to ask them to help.

"As soon as I realized you weren't gonna wake up soon," Alona explained, "I searched your pockets, 'cos I'm nosy, and found this." From her pocket, she extracted a crumpled up piece of paper and put it down on the bedside table. Zoey realized it was the paper John had given to Dean to give to her, with information about Stacey on. "So I got in touch, and explained what had happened. Stacey here seemed pretty interested by the job we were on, so we hunted together."

Zoey looked over at Stacey, who was scratching at a dirt stain on her jeans. Zoey had only seen her in two outfits, but from what she could tell, her sister was a jean and T-shirt kind of girl. "You hunted?"

Stacey nodded, smiling simply. "You were certainly ambiguous when you came to see me. Hunting sounded fun, and I wanted to help Alona wake you up, so… I helped."

Something relaxed in Zoey's chest. "Can you give us some privacy?" She asked Sam, Dean and Alona.

"Sure," Sam smiled, and the three of them stood up and left the room, Dean's eyes on Alona all the time. He still had a thing for her.

Stacey moved from the seat she'd been on to the one previously occupied by Dean then Sam. "What's up?"

Zoey was sitting up on the side of the bed by now. Her feet were bare, and rested on the chair next to Stacey's. "Do you really like hunting, Stacey?"

"Sure!" Her sister grinned. "It's fun."

Zoey shook her head. "Not all the time." Stacey frowned, and Zoey continued, "sure, running away from things, finding out new folklore, discovering a whole world has been existing around us for a long, long time – that's fascinating. Exhilarating. But with every good thing comes a bad. It's dangerous, Stacey, and it changes you. I know you're a grown woman, and you can make your own decisions, but you need to understand all the facts. Every hunt brings you so close to death. Sam and Dean's parents, and Sam's girlfriend, have all died at the hands of a demon. Our parents died at the hands of a disgusting, ungodly creature known as a wendigo. You need to be sure you know what you're getting yourself into."

"Zoey, the past week has been more fun than I've had in a long time. I get the risks, Alona's told me some pretty freaky stories – but I want to do this. I mean, why else did you come find me?"

"I don't know," Zoey said honestly, shrugging. "I guess my own curiosity got the better of me. I mean, I've spent the last 12 years thinking I'm the only Maynard left – and it turns out you exist. I had to know you."

"Well, now you do," Stacey smiled. "And I want this. I want us to be a part of each other's lives, and I wanna hunt with you."

Zoey bit her lip. "Four's a bit much for hunting," she admitted. "Most hunters are on their own, two or three is strange enough."

"Four?"

"Well, yeah… you, me, Sam, Dean."

"What about Alona?"

"Alona's a loner. That's why she's called Alona. She hunts on her own – she called me in under exceptional circumstances. That and she likes me." Zoey thought for a moment. "Look. You can't just jump into hunting. Even if you're born to do it, you can't just do it straight away. You need your facts straight. What if a ghost attacked you and you didn't know how to get rid of it? I know a few people who can take you in. You won't travel, not at first, but you can learn, and you'll be learning from the best."

Stacey nodded. "That sounds good. Who are these people?"

"You have two choices," Zoey explained. "You can go stay with Bobby Singer in North Dakota, or Jo and Ellen Harvelle in Nebraska. Bobby owns a motor repairs shop, but he used to be a hunter, and he's brilliant, one of the best hunters I've ever met. Jo and Ellen own a saloon with a guy named Ash, cool dude. Jo's husband was a hunter before he died, and the three of them know their stuff. Jo's about our age, I haven't met her…" she paused. "Actually, I don't know how the hell I know about them. Dean must have told me while I was comatose."

"Nebraska sounds good," Stacey surmised. "I guess it'll be easier with someone my age around, right?"

"That and Bobby can have a bit of a temper," Zoey laughed.

A while later, Zoey was dressed out of her hospital robe and back into normal clothes. Alona had gone, after teasing Dean a bit, and the gang were about to leave to get Stacey to Nebraska. Sam had called Ellen up at the roadhouse, and explained to her about Stacey. She had agreed to have Stacey stay with them, as she'd be good company for Jo.

Nebraska was just under a day away, so the journey would be long. Stacey was gonna ride in the Impala with Dean so she could get to know him – plus it turned out she was really into cars, and as Dean refused to let anyone else drive it, he was getting to know her on the journey – which is his way of saying he was deciding if she was worth hitting on or not. This left Sam and Zoey in the old orange truck. Sam hadn't driven for a while, and Zoey felt like she'd done too much driving, going between North Dakota and New Jersey, so she let him take the wheel.

Somehow, Sam and Zoey always found something to talk about. Their lives were filled with hunting, so there weren't any TV shows for them to discuss, but Zoey was happy to listen to Sam filling her in on the hunts he and Dean had been on while she had been gone. She was glad she'd missed one with creepy clowns. She laughed when Sam mentioned he was frightened of them, and he pulled a face. She apologized, but she was still grinning.

The car journey was long, but Zoey was glad she was with Sam. She napped for a bit and he played Bon Jovi while he drove, then they swapped and Sam napped for a bit and Zoey played Sinatra while she drove. In between, there were times of silence where they just thought or didn't, and there were times when they talked about anything they could think of. They saw Dean and Stacey in the Impala in front of them, and spent a good hour theorizing why Stacey shoved Dean. They kept coming back to the idea that he was hitting on her, and she wouldn't take it. "Good on her," Zoey had laughed.

"Hey, I was wondering," Sam said after a twenty minute silence, "you're Latina, right?"

"I well and truly am," she nodded. "Half Dominican."

"Right, so... why is Stacey Caucasian? I mean, she doesn't look a thing like you."

"You and Dean don't look a thing like each other."

"Yeah, but at least we're both the same race. And didn't you say both your parents had dark hair?"

Zoey frowned. "You know, I never even thought about it. What are you saying, then?"

"Well, maybe... maybe she's not entirely your sister."

Zoey glanced at him, confused. "Sam-"

"No, no, listen," he said, sitting up. "Maybe, maybe she's just a half sister. You know, like maybe she has a different mom."

"Oh, you reckon she's illegitimate?" As much as she hated to think about it, she had noticed the physical differences between herself and Stacey.

Sam shrugged. "Maybe."

"Well, let's see." Keeping one hand on the wheel, she reached into her back pocket and brought out the piece of paper she'd been given a couple of weeks back. As she had to keep her eyes on the road, she passed it to Sam. "I'm sure her birthday's on there."

Sam took the piece of paper, and was silent for a moment as he read it. "Oh my God," he said, more to himself than Zoey.

"What?"

"28 July. 1981."

"Holy shit." Stacey's birthday was exactly one month after Zoey's. Which meant that Zoey and Stacey couldn't have the same mother. Which meant... no. But it did, and Sam confirmed it out loud.

"Your mom isn't her mom."


	17. Everything Must Change

_I'm beginning to get a little tired of the misconceived idea of who you seem to think I am _  
_Although it looks that this comes easy, you know full well I've had my problems and I've cried_

Two months had passed since Stacey had come into Zoey's life. While she learned the ins and outs of being a hunter with Ellen and Jo, Zoey and the boys had been getting ever closer to finding the yellow-eyed demon who'd killed Sam and Dean's mum 23 years ago. And something weird was going on with Sam. He was getting weird powers, and the trio had met a few other people in the same situation. Recently they'd met a scared young girl called Ava, who had been taken by the demon. Sam, of course, was hung up on this and blaming himself completely.

But, of course, life goes on - people die weirdly, and the three of them have to handle it. Ellen had called them up with details of some strange deaths at a hotel in Illinois. So Dean pulled the Impala up next to a big old hotel, which looked like it had seen better days.

"Dude, this is sweet," Dean commented as he climbed out of the Impala. "I never get to work jobs like this."

"Like what?" Sam asked as he opened Zoey's door. She climbed out, smiling at his gesture, and threw his rucksack at him.

"Old school haunted houses, you know?" Dean continued. "Fog, and secret passageways, sissy British accents. Might even run into Fred and Daphne while we're inside. Mmm. Daphne. Love her."

Zoey remained silent, but raised an eyebrow slightly. Trust Dean to fancy a cartoon character.

"Hey, wait a sec," Sam said just as they went to enter the hotel. Dean and Zoey stopped and turned in unison to look at him as he approached an urn besides the steps. Something began niggling Zoey's mind, but she couldn't figure out what it was. "I'm not so sure haunted's the problem. You see this pattern here?" He indicated a symbol engraved in the urn. "That's a quincunx, it's a five-spot."

"Five-spot..." Dean thought for a moment. "That's used for hoodoo spellwork, isn't it?"

"Right, yeah," Sam replied. "You fill this thing with bloodweed and you've got a powerful charm to ward off enemies."

"Yeah, except I don't see any bloodweed." Dean pointed out. He looked up at the old building. "Don't you think this place is a little too, uh, whitemeat for hoodoo?"

Sam shrugged. "Maybe."

Zoey suddenly remembered what was bugging her. "Bag," she said. Casually, she reached into Dean's pocket where she'd seen him put the key to the Impala and began fishing for them.

"Hey, you wanna reach any further in there, feel free," Dean grinned. He was already back to flirting with her.

"Shut up, Dean." Zoey rolled her eyes as she got a grip on the keys and pulled them out.

"Right, not in front of the little one."

Sam made a bitchface at Dean as Zoey went down the steps. "You two go straight in, I'll catch up," she called over her shoulder as she made her way over to the Impala.

"She wants me," Dean said to Sam as they turned to go into the hotel. Honestly, he wasn't sure if that were true. Ever since she'd gone off and met up with Stacey and Alona, she'd been treating him differently - more like a brother than a guy she'd slept with. Maybe that bump on the head had turned her gay. He grinned at the thought of Zoey and Alona together. That'd be hot.

"May I help you?" A woman asked from behind a desk as the two boys entered the lobby.

"Hi, yeah, I'd like a room for a couple of nights," Dean replied.

"Hey!" The woman said as a girl ran past, bumping into Sam's legs. "Sorry about that."

"No problem," Sam said, shrugging it off.

"Well, congratulations, you could be some of our final guests," the woman said casually.

"Well. Sounds vaguely ominous," Dean said.

"No, I'm sorry, I mean we're closing at the end of the month. Well, let me guess. You guys are here antiquing?"

"How'd you know?" Dean asked, going along with it as they often did to keep their cover.

"Oh, you just look the type," the woman smiled as Zoey entered through the door behind them, carrying her bag. "So, uh, king-sized bed?"

"What?" Sam said quickly. "No, uh, no, we're... three singles. We're just brothers. We've got a friend with us, she's just getting her bags from the car."

"Boo," Zoey whispered in Sam's ear from behind, making him jump. She laughed, rather evilly.

The woman looked uncomfortable. "Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry," she apologized quickly.

"What'd you mean that we look the type?" Dean asked. The woman looked between him, Zoey and Sam, uncomfortable again.

Zoey whispered in Dean's ear this time. "She means you look gay," she half-giggled, half-whispered.

Sam quickly changed the subject. "You know, speaking of antiques, you have a really, really interesting urn on the front porch. Where did you get that?"

"Oh, I have no idea, it's been there forever," the woman shrugged. "Unfortunately we don't have any rooms with three singles, but we do have a double and a single, if that's alright?" She looked awkwardly between the three, hoping Zoey didn't turn out to be their sister.

Zoey shrugged. "I don't mind sharing."

"Okay, then," the woman smiled. "Here you go, Mr. Mahagov." She handed Dean a room key and dinged the bell on the desk. "You'll be staying in room 237. Sherwin, could you show these gentlemen and their friend to their rooms?" As she spoke, an old man in a blazer entered.

"Let me guess," he said. "Antiquers?"

Later, Zoey, Dean and Sam were in room 237, Zoey lying back on the double bed while Dean paced and Sam shifted through papers. Dean chuckled as he saw a dirty old wedding dress pinned up decoratively on the wall. "That's normal," he commented. "Why the hell would anyone stay here? I'm amazed they kept in business this long."

Sam began listing off victims as Dean sat on the bed next to where Zoey was lying. He was taken aback when the bed dipped with his weight. "Victim number one," Sam was saying, "Joan Edison, forty three years old, a realtor handling the sale of the hotel; and victim number two was Larry Williams, moving some stuff out to Goodwill."

"Well, there's a connection, they're both tied up in shutting the place down," Dean pointed out immediately. Zoey closed her eyes as she listened to the boys discussing who might be behind the hoodoo.

"Of course, the most troubling question is why do these people assume we're gay," Dean was saying.

"Well, you're both kinda butch," Sam replied, making Zoey open her eyes. "Probably think you're overcompensating, and Zoey's a lesbian."

Zoey turned her head to look at Sam. "You're lucky Dean's giant butt's in the way, else I'd kick yours."

After discovering a huge doll collection in one of the rooms and hearing the hotel owner's mother was shut in her room, Sam, Dean and Zoey split up. Sam went to his research, reading obituaries, trying to discover any past deaths in the hotel. Meanwhile Dean and Zoey went to find out more about the old woman in her room, but instead they discovered there had been another death - a man had apparently hung himself in his hotel room.

"You go talk to Susan, see what you can find out about this guy," Zoey told Dean. "I'll go check on Sam, make sure he hasn't... killed himself too."

It was awfully quiet as Zoey approached room 237. The door was ajar, and she pushed it to as she entered. Sam was sitting on a chair with his back to the door, apparently doing nothing. Zoey pulled the key out the door and shut it behind her as she entered.

"This guy just hung himself," she told him.

"Yeah, I saw," Sam mumbled.

"Did you get anything on the old woman?"

"You're bossy," Sam replied. Zoey turned to look at him. He looked up at her, and laughed. "And short. Like, really short. You're like a little doll." He laughed again, in a rather sloppy manner.

"You're drunk," Zoey sighed.

"Yeah," Sam shrugged. "So? Stupid."

"What the hell, Sam? We're on a job, you know!"

He stared off into space. "That guy... who hung himself. I couldn't save him."

Zoey knelt down in front of him, concern on her face. "Sam, you couldn't have known he was gonna do that."

"That's an excuse, Zoey," he replied, looking straight at her, pain in his eyes. "I should have found a way to save him. I should have saved Ava too."

Zoey shook her head. "You can't save everyone, Sam. Hell, even you said that."

Sam suddenly got angry, slamming the table. "No, Zoey, you don't understand, all right? The more people I save, the more I can change!"

"Change what?" She asked calmly.

"My _destiny_, Zoey!"

Zoey sighed. There was no getting through to him, he was too out of it. "Alright, come on. Let's get you to bed." She stood up and heaved him up - quite a feat, considering Sam was six foot four, and he was right about one thing in his drunken stupour - at five foot four, she was quite short compared to him and his brother.

"I need you to watch out for me," Sam said as Zoey pulled him up.

"We always do," she said passively, intent on getting him to sleep.

"No!" Sam objected. "No, no, no. You have to _watch out_ for me, all right? And if I ever turn into something that I'm not... you have to kill me."

Zoey shook her head. Killing Sam was the last thing on the list of things she'd ever do, and first on the list of things she'd never do, along with killing Dean and paragliding.

"Zoey!" Sam insisted. "Dad told Dean to do it, but he can't, he won't, so you have to."

She raised her eyebrows, not sure what to think of Sam's implication that she would find it easier to kill him than Dean would. "John was wrong," she told him.

"No, he was right to say it! Who knows what I might become? Even now, everyone around me dies!"

"I'm not dead," Zoey reminded him gently. "Neither is Dean, and nor are you. And that ain't changing any time soon." She pushed him down onto the bed, but he just sat down. He reached up and grabbed the fabric of Zoey's shirt by her neck. In response, she grabbed his shirt at the shoulder, so he wouldn't make her fall.

"No, please!" Sam was begging by now. "Zoey, you're the only one who can do it. You're the only one I _want_ to do it. Promise."

Zoey shook her head in disgust. "I am not promising anything like that, Sam-"

"Please," he begged again. "You have to promise me." There was a pause as Zoey and Sam stared at each other. She could see, in his eyes, he was completely serious about what he was asking of her.

"Okay," she nodded. "I promise." She hated empty promises, but she knew Sam wouldn't sleep until she agreed.

"Thanks," Sam said, gladly. He grabbed Zoey's face with both hands. "Thank you."

They looked at each other for a moment. Zoey was about to tell him to go to sleep, but before she could form the words on her tongue, she felt something warm on her lips. It took her a moment or two to realize Sam was kissing her. Another moment passed as she absorbed the shock of his sudden, unexpected motion. He took that to mean she wasn't going to fight back, and grabbed her shoulders, trying to pull her back onto the bed.

"Sam, Sam, no." Zoey protested, pulling away. "Sam, you're drunk."

"It doesn't matter," he said, looking at her seriously. "You've had sex with Dean so many times, why won't you have sex with me?"

"Dean wasn't drunk!" She almost shouted. "Besides, you don't think of me like that, I know you don't. It's the whisky, not you."

"You think I don't?" Sam asked, honestly surprised. "Zoey, I'm a man and I get urges. You're a woman and you walk around in your underwear!"

He kissed her again, harder this time, apparently enticed by remembering her in her underwear. He succeeded in pulling her down onto the bed, until she was lying on top of him. He was a lot rougher than Dean. She didn't know if that was just how he was, or if it was because he was drunk. Either way, it was different from Dean's gentler ways, and she realized she kind of liked it when Sam tore at her clothes, desperate to get them off. She'd imagined this for so many years, and the thought of that made her finally give in.

She forgot they were on a job, that Sam was drunk, and that Dean could walk in at any minute. She responded to Sam's animalistic moves in a similar way, tearing off his shirt as fast as she could. He tossed her over onto her back, so that he was on top. They didn't stop to breathe, and it had only been a minute or two since Zoey had given in, before Sam was penetrating her. He moved fast and hard, as if he couldn't make love to her rough enough for his liking - and boy, was he rough.

Zoey was going to share the double bed with Dean, but as she and Sam were already in it, they curled up together in post-coital embrace and he quickly fell asleep, snoring loudly. Zoey knew she probably shouldn't compare Sam to Dean, but as Dean was the only guy she'd had sex with before, she couldn't help but. She knew, thanks to Gabriel, that Dean was in love with her. Maybe that was it. Dean was in love with her, but Sam just lusted for her.

Her train of thought was cut short when she heard footsteps outside the door. She closed her eyes, and quickly pretended to be asleep. She realized that she'd taken the key and shut the door, so Dean was locked out. She thought about getting up and opening the door for him, but she heard him jimmy the lock with a credit card and let himself in.

"Very funny, locking me out," he began, but stopped as he saw Sam and Zoey asleep in the double bed. He was taken aback by surprise, and then, surprising him even more, a surge of jealousy ran through his stomach. He shook his head, refusing to believe the feeling in his stomach. He couldn't be jealous of Sam, and definitely not because of a woman. He was just glad it was Zoey. Although, in a way he wasn't. He knew he was the only guy she'd slept with, so naturally he felt possessive of her body - as if it were his to touch, nobody else's.

Dean shook himself, not liking the way his thoughts were headed. He made his way over to the single bed, commenting loudly about having to sleep in a tiny bed. As he put his head down, he had to turn and face the wall and hum Metallica to himself until he fell asleep.

The next morning, Zoey awoke suddenly, with an unpleasant feeling in her gut. She wondered for a moment if it were regret, but she remembered she always felt regret in her chest, and this feeling was definitely in her guts. She remembered with a start what the feeling was, and jumped up, not listening to Dean saying something to Sam about Grandma Rose, and not noticing Sam hadn't flushed the toilet yet. Dean quickly realized what was going on, and grabbed Zoey's hair, holding it back while all the food she'd eaten over the last few days came back out of her mouth, along with nasty tasting yellow bile.

Dean was sitting with her for a good ten minutes as her stomach seemed to try and get rid of every last morsel it hadn't yet digested. "Surprised her whole stomach's still in there," Sam commented as he brushed his teeth, his voice still raspy from his hangover.

"I think it's trying to come out," she groaned. "But it's stuck in there. Tubes... connected to... intestines... etcetera." She spat out a little more vomit, before finally sitting up properly. "I think I'm done."

"You sure?" Dean asked. "You said that already once, and then you vomited out a whole meal."

Zoey nodded. She knew when over was over. "There's nothing left."

Dean let go of her hair gently, tucking it behind her ears. "You'll wanna wash your face... and brush your teeth. Several times. And I think the two of you blocked the toilet. How much did you drink last night?"

"I didn't," she frowned. She hadn't thought until then, that her sickness was completely out of the blue. She was too busy being sick to wonder why she was being sick. Zoey stood up, flushed the toilet (to no effect) and began cleaning her face and trying to get the acidic taste out of her mouth. She asked what Dean had been saying about Grandma Rose before she'd barged in, and he explained that when she was a child, Rose had had a nurse who practiced hoodoo, and they were gonna go talk to her. Zoey agreed, happy to keep her mind on the job and off other matters.

Trying to talk to Rose was fruitless. She'd had a stroke, and was completely unresponsive when they tried to talk to her. Susan, the hotel's owner, found them and quickly kicked them out of the hotel. They were in the Impala in a flash, and driving away. They hadn't been driving five minutes before Zoey had to ask Dean to stop the car.

"There's a gas station up ahead," Dean said, not wanting to stop yet.

"Dean." Zoey spoke in a low, quite terrifying voice. "Stop the car."

Before the Impala had full come to a halt, Zoey was out the door, vomiting on the grass next to the road. Luckily she'd had the sense to tie her hair back after her spell earlier. Behind her, she heard Dean say, "oh, gross," while Sam climbed out of his seat and crouched next to her while she cleared out even more vomit. She was sure she hadn't eaten this much recently. Sam stayed with her, a hand on her shoulder to let her know he was still there. He stood up with her after she finished, and looked at her with concern.

"What?" She asked. "What is it, you know why I'm throwing up everywhere? 'Cos I don't, and I'd really like to."

"No," Sam said after a momentary pause. She knew that meant yes. "No, I don't." Yes, I do. But I'm not going to tell you.

"That's it, we're going back to the hotel," Dean concluded as they climbed back into the Impala. "That was way too close, you were nearly sick on my baby."

"You think hunting's gonna help her?" Sam asked as Dean swung the Impala around and began driving back.

"No. That's why we're finishing it on our own."

"What?" Zoey sat up straight. "No, Dean-"

"Hey!" Dean held up a hand to silence her. "You're not well for whatever reason, and I ain't having you running around if it means you're gonna be sick everywhere."

Zoey sighed, sitting back. She knew there was no arguing with him.

That was why she was sitting alone in a hotel room when everything came together. While Sam and Dean chased after a ghost, Zoey was lying on the double bed, thinking. Then she sat up so quick you wouldn't have seen it happen.

"Shit," she cursed. "I'm pregnant."

_It's not over, simply changing, and no one is to blame _  
_Just believe in what you're feeling, 'cos nothing stays the same_  
**_Everything must change_**


	18. Long Lingering Glances

**AN: I wrote this at 1a.m., so I apologize for any typos or bad grammar. Also I know this isn't my most koala tea chapter :( but like I said, 1a.m. Maybe I'll rewrite it at some point, or just leave it as it is, after all, it's only fanfiction. So yeah, don't anticipate it's a brilliantly written chapter, because it's not. I promise to return to usual koala tea next chapter ;)**

Every day, whether it's important or not, starts out ordinary. This day in particular was one of the more important days, but it started out in a kitchen in the back of a Nebraska bar, with Stacey Maynard washing dishes. That is, until she was interrupted.

"Hey, Stacey," came the voice of Ellen, the owner of the bar. "Your sister's here."

This took Stacey by surprise, as she hadn't seen her sister Zoey in a few weeks. She put the dish she was holding back in the sink, and made her way through to the bar, which had maybe five or six men milling around, all hunters. The only female not behind the bar, Zoey stood out. Stacey's smile turned into a look of worry as she saw the state her sister was in - her sleeves were rolled up, her hair messed up as if she'd been running her hands through it a lot, and her eyes were ridden with panic.

"Hey, Zoey," Stacey greeted her sister calmly. "Something up?"

Zoey nodded silently, and the pair sat down at one of the bar tables. She looked around, checking to see if any of the other customers were listening. They were all far too busy with their own business.

"I, um... I have something to tell you," Zoey began, not looking Stacey quite in the eye. Stacey waited, and Zoey continued, "I, um... I think- well, I know... I-I'm pregnant."

That wasn't what Stacey had expected to hear. "Pregnant? Seriously? Wow... I hate to ask this, but who's the daddy?"

"That's the thing," Zoey replied, a this-is-really-bad-but-I'm-so-nervous-I-can't-help-smiling sort of smile on her face. "I don't... exactly... I don't know."

Stacey raised an eyebrow, in just the way Zoey would.

"I-It's not as bad as it sounds," Zoey explained quickly. "I had sex with Sam a few days ago, right? And then the next morning I'm throwing up. That's not normal, to have morning sickness the day after. Which means it's probably Dean's, but I haven't had sex with him in about three months, so I'm pretty sure I'd be showing by now. But I took one of those pee stick tests, and it came out positive, so I'm definitely pregnant and I've never had sex with anyone other than Sam and Dean, so it's gotta be one or the other but I have no idea _which_."

"Okay," Stacey nodded, thinking a bit more logically than Zoey was. "Okay, listen. I'll take you to the hospital tomorrow, okay?"

"No!" Zoey shook her head, looking horrified. "No, I can't go to the hospital. I don't want ultrasound scans or anything, I don't want any of that baby crap! Hell, I don't even want a damn _baby_!"

"Maybe it's time you did," Stacey suggested. She was a strong believer of fate.

"No! No no no!" Zoey exclaimed again. "Don't you see? Stacey, this'll ruin _everything_! What am I gonna do with a baby? I'm an awful example for a mother! I've killed people, not just monsters, but people. I'm a bad person, I'm the last person who should be having a baby! I'm nowhere near ready to give up hunting, I can't just stop now, but I can't bring a baby into our world. If I stay at home with the baby, will Sam and Dean stay with me? Either I'll have to cope on my own or they'll be stuck not hunting too, all 'cos I can't keep my fucking legs together!" Zoey stood up angrily, kicking her chair onto the floor. "I've ruined my life!" She yelled. If the chair being kicked over didn't grab everyone in the bar's attention, her shouting did.

"Zoey, Zoey, calm down." Stacey tried fruitlessly to subdue her sister, but Zoey was barely paying attention anymore. "Zoey, everybody's watching."

"I don't care!" She shouted. "I don't care anymore! I don't care about anything! Why should I? I can't hunt anymore, I can't do anything! I don't even have a house, okay, we live in _motel rooms_. But I'm gonna have to get one! A house, and... a car and a job and a dog! And the arrangement's gonna be really fucking weird - what, will mini-me live with Mommy and two men, one of which is Daddy but we don't know which? Or, or will I live on my own? Do it all myself? Or will one of the boys stay with me and the other hunts? 'Cos that can't happen, Stace. You guys," she brandished at the listening hunters in the bar, "you all hunt alone, but we won't, we can't! We don't do it alone, we're a trio! Sam, Dean and Zoey, that's how it's meant to be! Not 'Just Sam, because Dean and Zoey are looking after a baby', or 'Sam, Dean and Zoey plus one'!" All these emotions and thoughts Zoey didn't even know she'd had came pouring out, and she let them all free in an almighty scream. Stacey, still calm, tried to stop Zoey as she flailed, nearly knocking more chairs over, but as she was much stronger, Zoey pushed her away, screaming again.

Suddenly, Zoey stopped screaming. She'd run out of energy. She stood in the middle of the bar, an absolute mess as everyone just stared at her. "I can't," she said simply. "I just can't. I don't wanna be pregnant."

"_What?_" Dean's voice came from the doorway to the bar. Zoey spun around, and saw Sam and Dean standing in the doorway, both staring at her with similar looks of disbelief. "You're _pregnant_?"

Zoey made a noise that was halfway between a moan and a sigh, but definitely said that she didn't want Sam and Dean to have seen her just then. "No," she lied badly. "I was just... rehearsing for a play." She knew she was lying badly, the boys knew it too. But she didn't want to admit it. "I'm playing the role of a woman who gets pregnant but doesn't know who the father is... because I fit that role... really, really... well." She tailed off, looking anywhere but at the boys. She was so ashamed, as the reality set in of what a scene she'd made in front of fellow hunters. And how she must look in front of Sam and Dean.

"Are you sure you have no idea whose it is?" Dean asked, only just digesting what he'd heard. "You'd be showing by now if it were mine, right?"

"You don't get morning sickness the day after," Zoey shrugged. "It could be either one of yours."

"I don't believe this," Dean groaned, his brother too shocked to say anything yet. Rage set in, and he began shouting at Zoey. "How the hell could you let this happen, Zoey?"

"Me? Dean, this is your fault too! You're the one who fucked me!"

"Yeah, and so's Sam! You freaking _whore_! How could you just... how could you just open your legs to Sam like that? Especially when he was drunk!"

"You think I haven't asked myself the same question?"

"Well then, you got an answer? Or were you too busy trying to figure out when you could next get one of us alone?"

If she had the energy, she would have slapped him. But she was too busy arguing to hit him. "Dean, you know _exactly_ why I slept with Sam," she said as she stepped close to him, staring him darkly in the eye.

"Well, Sam doesn't," Dean said, cottoning on to what Zoey meant. "Hey, there's an idea!" He looked around at his brother, who was now watching them argue with concern and a trace of fear in his face. "Well, Sammy? Wouldn't you like to know why Zoey screwed you while you were drunk?"

Sam stepped forwards, looking at Zoey. He wasn't angry like Dean was. In fact, he was quite calm. "Zoey?" He asked in a calm voice. "Why did you sleep with me?"

Zoey took a sharp breath in, watching Sam. Her eyes flickered over to Dean, then to Stacey, then back to Sam. "Fine," she said through gritted teeth. "Fine. You wanna know?" She stepped back and addressed the whole bar, "do you _all_ wanna know?" She looked straight at Sam, surprised at her own courage, as she said, "I slept with you because I've fantasized about it so many times. Always imagined what it must be like to have sex with you. And I wondered that... I wondered that because..." She took a deep breath in, and locked her eyes straight on Sam's. "I had sex with you, Sam, because I'm in love with you."

There was a moment, and then another, and then another, of silence. Everyone was just waiting for someone to say or do something. Zoey kept watching Sam, who was looking at her with utter surprise on his face. Finally, she spoke again. "I know you don't love me back. I've seen evidence enough of that. But I really... I really wish you did." On that end note, she moved quickly across the bar and out through the door.

* * *

"Hey."

After storming out of the bar, Zoey had taken refuge on the floor behind the building. She didn't even bother sitting on one of the boxes or tyres that were lying around there. She looked up, to see a young blonde girl she didn't recognize. "Do I know you?" She asked.

"I'm Jo," she said. "Ellen's daughter."

"Oh, yeah, I heard," Zoey replied rather absently.

"Mind if I sit with you?"

Zoey shrugged, and Jo sat on a tyre next to her. "What's it like in there?"

"My mom's got the customers to either leave or mind their own business."

"No offence, but I really don't care about that."

Jo smiled slightly. "After you left, Dean just sat at the bar and started drinking. He hasn't said a thing. Sam's just pacing back and forth, muttering. I caught some swears in there, but that was all I heard. And Stacey's putting back all the chairs you knocked over."

"Sorry about that."

"Oh, that's okay. At least you didn't break any. Trust me, we've had bar fights much more violent than that. But yours'll be one to remember," she smiled.

"Well, at least someone's happy."

"No, I'm sorry... what happened with you guys is pretty hardcore."

"You don't know the worst of it," Zoey sighed, looking up across the fields that stretched out behind the bar. "Hey, I'm gonna go for a walk on my own," she told Jo as she stood up. "If anyone wants to follow me, tell them I said to go screw themselves."

"Okay," Jo replied, a smile still on her face. "Nice meeting you, Zoey."

"Bye, Jo," Zoey said absently as she jumped over the hedge and started walking off, the world now silent, save the odd car driving in the distance.

She must have been walking in circles for twenty minutes before she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped and span around, but relaxed when she saw it was only Sam.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Zoey wondered what he was referring to exactly. "What are you doing here?" She asked instead.

Sam sighed. He'd obviously reheared in his head what he was going to say, but now it came to the actual moment, he may as well not have rehearsed anything at all. Zoey could relate to that feeling. "Look, Zoey..." he began. "I've been thinking. About what you said, about you, about... about us. Earlier you said you wished I loved you back. The thing is, Zoey... I'd be lying if I said I didn't have feelings for you. But I don't know what those feelings are. If they're romantic, brotherly or just lustful. You know that ignoring your feelings doesn't get you anywhere, so I decided... I wanna be with you. Romantically. And then maybe I can figure out from there how I feel about you."

"Are you just saying this because I might be carrying your bastard child?" Zoey felt she had the right to demand straight answers.

"No," he replied. A smile didn't even flicker across his face. He knew how serious this conversation, and the whole situation, was. "I'm saying it because it's true. So... how about it?"

Zoey was the one to smile. "I don't see anything wrong with that," she said truthfully.

"Okay," Sam smiled. He gently placed his hands on Zoey's waist and leant down to kiss her. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back, pushing herself up on tiptoes slightly to make up for the twelve inch height difference. The kiss was soft and warm and tender, much like she'd always imagined it would be. It should have been their first kiss.


	19. Thirteen

**So I realised in the last chapter I completely forgot about Ash. D'oh. So I made him ill to explain away his absense.**

The day after Zoey's breakdown, she woke up in Sam's arms. It was the first time she'd woken up in someone's arms not having had sex with them the night before. She liked it. She could tell Sam was still asleep from his breathing. He was peaceful for once - he'd had so many nightmares recently. It scared her sometimes how intense his demon child issues were. The whole thing with Azazel didn't have a whole lot to do with her - he'd never done anything to her, thank God. He had a habit of killing women who associated with the Winchesters, but for some reason he hadn't got to Zoey. (The last time they saw him, before John died, Azazel did try to attack her. But somehow he couldn't reach her. Literally, it was as if she had an invisible force field around her. She and the boys had never figured out how that happened... not for lack of trying.)

Eventually, Zoey opened her eyes. It was early - the sun was orange as it was still rising. It couldn't have been later than five or six am. The only noise Zoey could hear was that of Dean snoring on the couch. She shuffled around to face him, trying not to wake Sam as she moved.

Dean seemed uncomfortable. He was fully dressed ,and he was frowning as he slept. Zoey considered getting up and making him more comfortable, but as soon as the thought crossed her mind, sam's arms around her held her closer, as if he'd heard her thoughts and didn't want her to get up. Instead she nestled back against Sam, trying to get back to sleep. But she was awake now, and couldn't get back to sleep - but at the same time she was too tired to get up... that, and she was comfortable where she was. Sam was warm and made her feel safe, and Zoey had the feeling that if she stepped out of the bed, it would be a lot colder, and she'd be more exposed to... monsters under the bed. Or something. It didn't matter - she just wanted to stay with Sam - Sam, who woke up just then. He stirred, making a low noise in the back of his throat before his eyes crept open. It took him a few moments to wake up properly. "This bed is really cramped," he murmered.

"No, you're just huge."

"And you're tiny."

"So it evens out."

"What are we talking about?" Sam was obviously still partly asleep.

"Tables."

Sam finally focused on Zoey, and frowned. "Stop confusing me."

"Astronauts."

"Zoey..."

"The Queen of England."

Sam moaned, and rolled on to his back, releasing his hold on Zoey. She laughed - Sam was always grumpy and delerious in the mornings. "Geez, way to take up the whole bed, Sam," she said. He nudged her, and she found herself rolling onto the floor. They'd slept in their clothes, and Zoey now saw how creased her clothes had gotten. "Bed hogger," she grumbled as she stood up, smoothing out her clothes.

Dean grunted as he rolled over on the couch.

"Any idea how we're gonna tell him?" Zoey nodded toward Sam's brother. "About us?"

"I was thinking you could tell him."

"Me? You're the sap. You tell him."

"It's not the fact I'm with you he needs to know, Zoey. He needs to know that you're with me."

Zoey looked at him, trying to comprehend what he'd said. "Whatever," she shrugged. "Fine. I'll do it. But I'm using you as a shield if he's not happy."

"I reckon he'll be alright," Sam said as he swung himself out of bed.

Zoey turned back to him on her way to the door. "We are talking about the same Dean, right? Nobody knows how he'll react to anything. That's the Wonderful Mystery of Dean."" Zoey opened the door and went downstairs, Sam following after. They entered the bar area, which was empty except for Stacey, who was wiping down one of the tables. She glanced up at them. "Sex hair," she said, before resuming cleaning.

"Quiet, Blondie." Zoey grabbed a couple of packets of crisps from behind the bar and threw one to Sam.

"You know we have a kitchen?" Stacey raised an eyebrow at her sister's choice of breakfast.

"I'd burn everything," Zoey shrugged as she sat down on one of the bar stools. "Do I look like someone who can cook?"

"Ellen's in there right now. She can throw you something together, she's a super good cook."

"I'll go help her." Sam threw his crisps over at Stacey, who caught them with skill. "Give you two some girl time."

As soon as he left the room, Stacey threw her cloth down and practically skipped over to sit on the barstool by Zoey. "So," she grinned.

"So what?" Zoey broke open her crisps.

"You guys do it yet?"

Zoey raised an eyebrow. "Stacey, we got together yesterday. No."

Stacey leaned back, devoid of gossip. "Told Dean yet?"

Zoey shook her head as she put a crisp in her mouth. "I don't know how. I mean, should I do it sensitively? Casually? God only knows what he's gonna think. He's so unpredictable."

"You and Sam gonna tell him together?"

"I guess. I think we're both gonna be there, but I'll be the one to actually say it. Sam reckons Dean'll be more bothered about me being with him than him being with me... whatever the hell that's supposed to mean." The smell of bacon began wafting from the kitchen. What Zoey and Stacey didn't know was that Sam was having the same conversation in the kitchen with Ellen.

"How you handling the baby thing?" She asked him.

"It's, er... it's definitely a wory. But right now we need to stay concerned with Dean. Then we'll worry about Zoey."

"Whose do you think it is?" Stacey was asking Zoey.

"Honestly? I have no idea," she shrugged. "It could easily be Dean's, but I guess I kinda ohpe it's Sam's."

Meanwhile, Jo had bumped into a newly-waken Dean upstairs, and there, too, were having the same conversation.

"Sam's," he said, determined to convince himself of it. "It can't be mine."

"I think it's Dean's," Sam said to Ellen quite matter-of-factly. "She was throwing up the morning after we..." He paused, embarrassed, and cleared him throat. "I wouldn't mind if it were mine, though."

"What if it wasn't?" Stacey asked.

"It doesn't matter to me," Zoey admitted. "I just hate the fact that I don't know."

"Don't even go there," Dean said to Jo. There was a hint of fear behind his eyes. "If that kid were mine, half me and half Zoey... we already agree we're both fucked up, especially when we're together. The kid'd be a mess. It's gotta be Sam's."

"I'd be surprised," Sam said truthfully. "And a little scared. I don't know how fit I'd be to be a father... especially with the demon thing."

"What about Zoey?" Ellen asked as she turned over the bacon.

Stacey had asked Zoey the same. "Oh, God, I'd be an awful mother. Tht's why I'm so damn scared, Stace. Can you imagine what sort of life the kid'd have? Especially with us, the three most unstable people in the world."

"I love that girl, but she can hardly look after herself," Dean was saying.

"It'd be hard," was Sam's response. "She's struggle, but... I have a feeling she'd adjust to it. She's stronger than she thinks."

Dean and Jo entered the bar area, breaking the chain of simultaneous conversations. "Damn, nice sex hair," Stacey said.

"Just stop," Zoey told her.

"I smell bacon!" Dean said happily, plonking himself down on the barstool on Zoey's other side.

"And here it is!" Ellen said grandly as she came out of the kitchen with plates of breakfat. She put the plates down on the bar's biggest table, and Sam followed after with more plates. Everyone sat down around the circular table as the last plates came out. Zoey sat with Sam on her left and Stacey on her right. Jo sat by Stacey and Ellen by Sam, with Dean between the two Harvelles. For a good while, nobody thought about any supernatural beings or a baby with an uncertain heritage. It was just the six of them, eating breakfast and having fun together. Zoey found herself bonding more with her sister, and she was pleased to see the friendship that had quickly formed between Stacey and Jo.

"Ellen, where's Ash?" Sam asked.

"Sick, poor thing," Ellen replied. "He's not up to getting outta bed. I'll bring him summat to eat real soon."

With Stacey pulling Jo into conversation, Dean looked over at Zoey and smiled as she stole Sam's last piece of bacon. He looked down at his plate, then up at Zoey, frowning. She grinned at him cheekily.

"Quite a bit of bacon you've had there," he said casually. "I guess you won't need your egg." Sam grabbed the egg sandwich she'd made and took a huge bite out of it, consuming the whole yolk in one bite.

"Why, Grandma," Zoey said in wonderment, her eyes wide, "what a big mouth you have!"

"All the better to eat your breakfast with," he responded, taking another bite from her sandwich. "Yeah, and all the better to get my breakfast all over your face with, you pig." Zoey reached up and gently wiped the yolk off Sam's chin with her thumb, both of them too occupied with each other to notice Dean had seen the whole thing.

He was watching them with a slight crease in his forehead and a strange sinking feeling in his gut he was sure he'd felt before. Curiosity struck him - something was up with Sam and Zoey. He had to pin one of them down later and find out what.

* * *

"Zoey, can we talk?"

Zoey looked up from the plate she was washing. Her sister was standing with her, a look of serious concern on her face.

"Sure," Zoey nodded, putting the plate back into the sink and pulling the rubber gloves off her hands as she followed Stacey into the bar area. It was a Sunday, so the bar wasn't open yet and the two Maynards were alone. "What's up?"

"Zoey, I... I want you to seriously consider going to the hospital. About the baby."

Zoey rolled her eyes and sighed. "Stacey, we've been over this-"

"You were emotional! And you weren't thinking straight."

"I was thinking just fine."

"You told the boys that what they saw was a play rehearsal, then you told Sam you were in love with him in front of a bar full of hunters. If that's thinking straight, I'd hate to see your idea of not thinking straight."

"...I never thought about it that way," Zoey admitted.

"Look, I'm not saying you need to find out how far along you are. We can ask the doctor to leave that part a mystery. But for the baby's health, and your own, you _need_ to see a doctor. Because whether you like it or not, you are pregnant, Zoey, and you're gonna have a baby. You can't stop that, no matter how much you'd like to. So you need to start looking after the both of you - starting with a trip to the hospital."

Zoey sighed. "Okay, fine. But only if you come with me."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," her sister smiled.

* * *

"Lucky Ash has some contacts here," Stacey was asying as she and Zoey walked down the hallway of the local hospital. "Got you in with Doctor Redfield. Her brother's a hunter."

"He sure is," came a female voice. A young-looking doctor, no doubt Doctor Redfield, joined them just as they reached the room they were headed to. "Maynard, was it?"

"That's right," Stacey smiled. "I'm Stacey, this is my sister Zoey."

Doctor Redfield directed her gaze towards Zoey. "You're the pregnant one? Right this way," she smiled, opening the door and stepping aside to let the two girls through. "If you'd like to just lie down in the bed there, Zoey - Stacey, if you'd like to grab a chair - then we'll get started."

The jelly Doctor Redfield put on Zoey's stomach was cold, and it made her jump slightly. As the doctor ran the scanner over Zoey's stomach she said, "Stacey told me you don't want to know how far along you are, is that right?"

Zoey nodded silently. Doctor Redfield looked at the screen with interest. "What's wrong?" Stacey asked, worried.

"Nothing," Doctor Redfield replied. "Nothing's wrong at all. But you're having twins."

"I'm having _whats_?" Zoey looked over at the doctor, panic-stricken. "You gotta be kidding me. Tell me you're kidding, doc."

"Not kidding," Doctor Redfield said. "Two very healthy twins."

Zoey laid her head back, and sighed. "How far along?"

"I thought you didn't want to know?"

"Tell me now, before I change my mind."

Doctor Redfield turned the monitor around so Zoey could see. She could easily make out two very distinct baby shapes. "Thirteen weeks," the doctor announces.

"Thirteen..." Zoey looked over at Stacey, who grimanced. "Dean," she sighed. "Dean's the father."


	20. The Beginning of the End

**AN: Sorry it took me so long to get this up. I haven't been very inspired to write lately :/ anywho, I'm not overly proud of how this chapter starts out, but I feel it gets better near the end.**

With Zoey and Stacey at the hospital, Dean decided it was time to speak to Sam. Dean wasn't much into talking, but he had a feeling something was going on between Sam and Zoey, and he knew he had to find out. So he got Sam alone and asked him outright.

A rather guilty expression crossed Sam's face, and Dean immediately knew the answer - but he wanted to hear it out of Sam's mouth anyway. "Yeah," he confessed. "We were gonna tell you together, but… yesterday, when she walked out and I went to find her? We sort of agreed to - to be together. I don't know how I feel about her, I guess, and I figured - y'know, there wouldn't be much harm in giving it a go, right?"

Dean's jaw tightened as he nodded. "Yeah, okay, Sammy."

"You're - you're okay with it, then?" Sam asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, I mean, you're both adults, who am I to judge if you two wanna… mess around? Just don't, er - don't mess around when I'm in the room, okay? That's gross. And kinda weird."

"Yeah, that would be very weird," Sam agreed. He felt relieved and kind of awkward - he was glad Dean was okay with it, but it was still strange to be talking about this with him. Before anything more could be said, a door opened nearby and Ash stepped out, stretching.

"Woah, sick dude," said Dean, stepping back a bit.

"You feeling better?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, man, loads," Ash replied, still a bit delerious. "When did you guys arrive?"

"Er, yesterday," Sam told him.

"Thought I heard you getting up," Ellen said to Ash, coming into the hallway they were standing in. "Sam, Dean - the girls are back."

Sam immediately made his way outside to the car park in front of the bar, and caught up with Zoey and Stacey. "Hey," he greeted them. "How'd it go?"

Stacey gave her sister a comforting smile and continued on into the bar, leaving Zoey and Sam alone outside. "I, um… I don't have the greatest news," Zoey told him.

"What's wrong?" Sam frowned.

"Well, the doctor scanned my belly and everything was fine, but…" Zoey paused, and Sam waited patiently for her to continue. "I'm having twins."

A wave of shock ran down Sam's spine. "Are you serious?"

"Yep," she nodded. "And, um… she told me how far along I am."

"And?"

"And…" Zoey looked away, not wanting to look Sam in the eyes. "They're Dean's." Sam nodded, as if to say that he had suspected as much. "I don't think we should tell him," Zoey admitted. "I mean, he doesn't really need to know, right?"

"Zoey... I don't know. He has a right to know."

"Yeah, but I'm the pregnant one, it doesn't matter who knocked me up. This is my decision not to tell him, so we'll just leave it at that, okay?" Zoey gave him her best and-that's-final look.

"Fine," Sam agreed, pulling his infamous bitchface. As they walked to the bar, he asked, "hey, what are you gonna do now?"

"What do you mean?" Zoey frowned as they went through the door.

"Well, not a lot of pregnant women run around chasing after monsters."

Zoey stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him. "Wait, you're suggesting I stop hunting?" Sam began to reply, but Zoey interrupted before he could begin, "no. I am not quitting just 'cause I got a couple of buns in the oven, Sam. No way."

"Sammy's right," Dean said from the bar. Sam and Zoey turned in unison to look at him. He stood up, beer in hand, and came over to them. "You got one on the way, Zo, you ain't going chasing after things that wanna kill you."

"And who are you to decide what I do and don't chase after, Dean Winchester?" Zoey crossed her arms with attitude. "I can look after myself."

"Yeah, well, I'm the one who's gotta look after you."

"I never asked for you to look after me, Dean!"

"No, but Dad did, and so I'm telling you, I'm not letting you hunt with us," he said assertively.

"Hold on a second," Sam said, "Dean, she's right, let her make her own decisions-"

"No, forget it, Sam," Zoey interrupted, not taking her eyes off Dean's. "You don't want me hunting with you? Fine. I won't." She grabbed an open newspaper from a table. "But I got a hunt right here. And I'm going after it. You two wanna join me, you're welcome to. But just to make it clear," she said threateningly, stepping right in front of Dean, locking eyes with him, "I am not hunting with you. You're hunting with me." She held out her hand. "Gimme your keys. _Now_."

Relunctantly, Dean took the Impala keys from his pocket and put them in her hand. "You get one scratch on my baby-" he warned.

"Oh, don't worry," she smirked. "Pretty sure my whole point here is I'm not getting any baby hurt." She stepped back, grinning. Sometimes the boys - especially Dean - forgot she wasn't just a girl who travelled with them. She was also a woman who could take down anything she wanted, including the Winchesters if necessary. "Get your coats, boys. We're going to Rhode Island."

On that note, she left the bar. There was a stunned silence for a moment or two, which Stacey broke.

"My sister is _awesome_!" She laughed.

"That's something we call scary Zoey," Dean said. "Only comes out on a Friday night. Like Urcle. Come on, Sammy."

"Uh... bye, guys," Sam said quickly before following Dean out the door.

"Well," Jo sighed, sitting on a barstool. "That was interesting."

"An _angel_?" Dean looked at the newspaper in his hand in bewilderment. "Are you freakin' serious?"

"We don't know anything for certain," Zoey reminded him from the driver's seat. She was enjoying driving the Impala next to Sam while Dean sat in the back. Role reversal... Zoey thought she should try it more often. It was fun. "That's just what the girl said. Could be nothing." They pulled into a motel. "We'll get you inside, hide you away, then me and Sam'll go find this girl and talk to her."

Dean, currently a police target, waited in the shadows outside the motel while Sam went and got a room. Zoey waited outside with Dean.

"How long you gonna keep this up, Zo?"

Zoey punched him in the arm for calling her Zo. "Keep what up?"

"This whole female alpha male crap," Dean replied, trying not to wince in pain at her punch.

"Until you admit you have no control over me and stop trying to convince me to quit hunting," she replied casually. She leant against the wall next to him and looked over - and eight inches up - at him. "You know I hate it when you take control, Dean," she said quietly and seriously. "I hate it when anyone takes control over me."

"Yeah, I know that," he admitted. "It's just... I worry about you sometimes. That you're gonna be so independent that you're gonna get yourself killed."

"I'll be fine," she laughed. "Really, you don't have to worry about me. It's Sam we need to worry about. Pregnancy? Trivial. There are books and the internet for that. We can get through it easy. But Sam's demon thing? Not so easy. I'm a lot more worried about him becoming evil than me becoming a mother."

"You as a mother..." Dean looked at the floor, and shook his head. "It's not something I'd expect. No offence."

"None taken, I wouldn't expect it either... I mean, I know sex often leads to pregnancy, but... I never thought it'd be me, you know? Though I guess we shoulda thought about it, really. It's sorta the obvious thing to think about, but us..."

"We're idiots," Dean said, finishing her sentence.

Zoey laughed. "Definitely!" She banged her head against the wall. "Stupid stupid stupid."

"Hey, stop that," he nudged her with his elbow. "Trying to crack your head open?"

"Yes. Then maybe some sense will find its way in."

"Too late for that," he grinned.

"Well, here comes less sense... I'm real sorry, Dean. I know I've been a pain recently. And I'm not trying to make excuses, but it's a shock... and the worst shock I could get. And it's confusing, and frustrating, and the whole who's the father thing just creates drama, and God knows I hate drama."

Before Dean could reply, Sam came out with three hotel keycards. "Room 204," he told them, handing them both their keycards. "Double and a single."

"Son of a bitch, looks like we're sharing then, Zoey," Dean sighed, a slight cheeky grin aching to emerge on his lips.

"Shut up," Zoey told him, stepping on his toe while purposely putting her arm around Sam's waist. She'd never thought much about it before, but she realised how much shorter than him she was. They had a full twelve inches between them, and she just came up to his armpit. "C'mon, let's get your criminal ass inside."

Inside the hotel room, Dean immediately jumped on his single bed. "Hey, look, magic fingers!" He grinned. "I think I got some quarters."

As he fished around in his pocket, Zoey turned to Sam, who was taking his jacket off. "You've been quiet," she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Something on your mind?"

"The usual," he shrugged. "Demons. Babies. And now angels."

"You really think it's an angel?"

"Could be. Better go check it out."

"So," Zoey said as she drove, "you really believe in angels?"

"Well, yeah," Sam replied. "Why not? The amount of things we see, things people could barely imagine... why not angels? Don't you believe in angels, Zoey?"

"I dunno," she said truthfully. "I've never seen any hard evidence, but if someone came up to me with hard proof that angels existed - proper, subserviant, angel of the Lord angels, not the advanced fairy crap from the Southern Vampire Mysteries - then sure, I'd add it to the long list of weird stuff we've seen. But I'm not gonna go on lore alone. If everything there was lore on existed, there'd be so much around. There's different lore on demons, some says they're not as evil as they are - vampires too, different lore on how to kill them. And there's lore about people being possessed by demons when really they're not, because it's still their own mind in control, no matter how mad that mind is. So no, I'm not gonna straight-out believe in angels. But prove to me they exist and I'll believe. I'm not living off faith alone."

"Man, you sound just like Dean. Am I the only one with faith here?"

"Blind faith? Yes. I only have faith if I have proof."

"But that's not what faith is. Faith is believing in something whether you have proof or not."

"In that case, yeah, you are the only one with faith. But I, erm... can I tell you something? Promise not to tell Dean."

"Sure," Sam agreed.

"Not a word. At all. Ever."

"Zoey, you can trust me."

"Okay." She looked forwards and focused on the road ahead as she spoke. "You know when I went to find Stacey and I ended up doing a job with Alona, then I ended up unconcious for a week?"

"I remember." Sam looked at Zoey with interest.

"I do believe in Native American magic. There's enough lore and coexistant proof of that. And I only bumped my head, I was out for ages. I sort of had... it wasn't a dream. It was too vivid for that. But it... I dunno, Sam, it was weird. I _walked_ through my memories. This guy, he guided me, he was trying to tell me something by reminding me of my own memories. He said, he said he was my guardian angel. Called himself Gabriel."

"Gabriel? Like the archangel?"

"Yeah, I guess. You - you think it was really him? Or just a coincidence?"

"Maybe." Sam frowned, deep in thought. "That's strange."

"You're telling me."

"You said he was trying to tell you something... did he?"

Zoey bit her lip. "This is the bit you really gotta promise not to tell Dean."

"I won't."

"He showed me some memories of me and Dean... without you there... and he made me realise something, something that's not exactly helpful."

"What?"

"Dean, he..." Zoey took a breath. "Dean's in love with me." There was a silence, and Zoey chanced a glance at Sam. His expression was unreadable. "Sam... say something?"

"I'm not sure what I should say," he said slowly. "I'm... surprised."

"He doesn't know," Zoey told him. "At least, as far as I can tell, and I can read him pretty well. But that's what Gabriel told me. I saw it with my own eyes, Sam. He's in love with me... almost as much as I'm in love with you."

"Almost?"

"Almost," she nodded. "If he loved me that much, he'd realise it. It's pretty intense, hard to ignore." Zoey felt uncomfortable talking about emotions. She sighed an internal sigh of relief as she pulled up to the prison they had been headed for. She picked up their FBI badges and paused before climbing out of the car, just as Sam opened his mouth to speak.

Zoey tucked her badge in her pocket and looked up to give Sam his, when she found he had walked around the car and was kissing her. She was taken by surprise, but soon was kissing him back.

It was a while before they pulled away. Zoey looked up at Sam, surprise still in her eyes.

"I don't care how Dean feels about you," he told her. "He's had his chance with you, he's had a long time to realise if he's in love with you. But you're in love with me, not him, and that's what matters."

"I would be all for backseat sex right now, but we kinda have a job to do here..." Zoey was fighting hard to resist the urge. "Maybe after?"

"Wait, when did we get from emotions to sex?"

"Emotions aren't my comfort zone, Sam," Zoey confessed. "You gotta know that by now? They're awkward and just strange. You're the sap, remember?"

Sam smiled a little. "I think I saw a lay-by in the shadow of a tree up ahead."

It didn't take long for Zoey to drive the Impala up to a secluded spot and they were soon clambering into the back seat, tugging clothes off as fast and as furiously as they could. The moment they both had their pants off, Sam was entering her with a force that could only be described as hungry. Zoey sighed with passion and gripped his back tight as he moved rhythmically, never letting up on the animalistic force. He was even better than when he was drunk, she discovered as Sam managed to turn them both over so she was on top, despite the small space and his huge figure.

They were interrupted, to their shock, by a knock on the window. Sam shot up, accidentally sending Zoey face-down onto the floor. "That postman comes at the most inconvenient times," she said as Sam wound the window down.

"Can I help you, Officer?" Sam asked. Zoey groaned into the floor. The first time she had car sex and they were caught.

"You two kids wanna get your pants back on?" Said the police officer in a gruff voice.

Zoey propped herself up on her elbows to look up at the police officer. He was black, probably in his mid-40s, and looked both very tired and very grumpy. Here was a guy whose wife hadn't given it up in months. "For the record, we're not kids," she told him. "I'm 25 and my boyfriend here is 23. Also we're FBI and above you, so go away." Sam nudged her. "I'd show you our badges but that would involve sitting up and I don't feel you have the right to see anything. So how's this for a deal - you go wait in your cop car while we get dressed, we show you our badges, then we all drive along on our merry little way and you forget you saw anything while we forget to tell our boss to get your job taken away."

The officer looked at her for a few moments as if he were trying to decide whether or not she was being serious. Once he had decided she was, he turned around to go sit in his car while Sam and Zoey got dressed.

"Worst idea you've ever had," Sam said.

"Hey, I got us out of it!"

"Zoey, while you were at the Roadhouse, Dean and I went on a job and got our faces on the _actual_ FBI's wanted list. If this guy finds out-"

"He's a Rhode Island cop," Zoey replied as, now fully dressed, she reached into the front to get the fake badges. "And it's not like we were killing each other or anything. It's nothing."

"I don't understand your logic sometimes," Sam shook his head as they got out of the Impala. "Sometimes you don't worry at all and other times you do nothing but."

"Welcome to my head. I do not take responsibility for any loss of sanity while exploring the maze." As she said this, the cop was examining their badges. He passed them back, a reluctant look on his face.

"Alright, seems legitimate," he said. "If I catch you two without any pants on again, it's straight off to jail, FBI or not. Got it?"

Zoey and Sam nodded in unison, and the cop got back in his car and began to drive off. "So, this talking about emotions thing," she said as they went back to the Impala, "it seems that might have been a better option. You wanna teach me how to do that sometime?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed as they climbed in. "I think it's high time you learned."

When they got back to the motel, Dean was on the bed, magic fingers switched on. Zoey and Sam exchanged glances. Dean had his eyes shut and was enjoying himself far too much. "Lemme handle this," Zoey said to Sam.

She crept up to Dean's bed and jumped on him, making him shout and sit up suddenly. Zoey fell onto the floor, laughing.

"Dude, what the hell?" Dean exclaimed.

"You know, this is the second time this week one of you two has pushed me off a bed and onto the floor," Zoey said as she stood up. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were plotting against me. But you're too dumb for that."

Sam pulled a bitchface at her, and Dean did his best I'm-gonna-kill-you-for-that face which, in Zoey's opinion, wasn't as good as hers. But it was still pretty scary. "Oh, hey, I just remembered... I'm pregnant, that means I have to pee a lot, right? I have to pee." She turned and hurried into the bathroom. Once in there, she realized she really did need the toilet. Once she'd done all that, Zoey washed her hands and looked into the mirror while she tried to clear her head.

_How can I clear my head? Everything's so crazy! Dean's wanted by the FBI, Sam's wanted by the demons, and I'm wanted by - wait, I'm not wanted by anyone. Oh, I feel loved. I'm just knocked up. Double that. Knocked up twice? Double knocked up? Why is knocked up even a phrase for being pregnant? What does knocking have to do with babies? And why am I knocked _up_? Why not knocked across, or knocked down? I'm confusing myself. Hey, look, they gave us a bath in this motel room. Nice. Oh, and rubber ducks too. A big one and a little one, it's like a mama duck and a baby duck! Woah, am I crying? Why am I crying at the mama duck and baby duck? Must be hormones. Damn babies, making me look bad already, I can't even see them yet. Lucky I'm the only one in the room. Unless there's a camera. Oh, God, is there a camera? Shut up, Zoey, only a perverted hotel would have cameras in the bathrooms. You're alone. Geez, am I gonna be this hormonal for the next 6 months? So much for clearing my head. Oh, God, this is my head for the next 6 months, isn't it? Full of questions and confusion. I feel so... not me. Maybe because of the two mini-mes inside me. And mini-Deans. Eurgh. Poor things, half-me and half-Dean. They're gonna need therapy the minute they walk outta me. Why am I even doing this? I could just get rid- no. No, stupid idea, Zoey. You're full of stupid thoughts today. Stop thinking stupid thoughts. Think about something more rational. Like the job. Oh, angels, yeah, way more rational. Man, my life is weird._

Zoey left the bathroom to find Sam and Dean debating over the existance of angels.

"She did say that the angel gave her a sign," Sam was saying. "Right beside the doorway."

"Could be something at his house worth checking out," Dean replied, his interest piqued. "You coming, Zoey?"

Of couse she went. Zoey always went, and for a long time she kept going. Sam and Dean learned pretty quickly to stop bugging her about her developing pregnancy, but she couldn't stop Dean making fun of her growing belly. It came to a point where she had to lean to see her toes, and it was exhausting for her to keep hunting - so much so that she finally agreed to stop and stay in one place. Which is why she was asleep at Bobby's when Dean rang.

"Better be good, I'm sleeping," she mumbled into the phone.

"Zoey," Dean said over the phone, "Sam's gone."

She sat up, suddenly more alert. "He what? What happened?"

"I think Azazel took him. People are dead on the floor and there's sulpher everywhere. Bobby there?"

"Uh..." Zoey listened, and heard the fridge being opened a floor down. "Yeah, yeah he's here. Hang on." She swung herself up off the bed and shrugged her dressing gown on before making her way downstairs. "Hey, Bobby?" It was late at night, so Bobby was also ready for bed - in his underpants. "Oh, lovely. Remind me to buy you a robe."

"He hot?" Dean laughed over the phone.

"Shut up, Dean. Bobby, Dean wants to talk to you." Zoey handed the phone over to Bobby.

Bobby took the phone, and looked at it in confusion. "This is a phone? Where are the buttons?"

"On the screen. Just talk to him, Bobby," Zoey replied as she went to get a glass of water.

Bobby tentatively put the phone to his ear. "Hello? ... He what?"

"My reaction exactly," Zoey muttered as she raised the glass to her lips.

"Yeah, I'll get on that right away," Bobby said, before turning to Zoey and asking, "how the hell do you hang up on this thing?"

Zoey took the phone and hung up for him. "Not even saying goodbye?"

"More important things here." Bobby set to work on what Dean had asked which, as it turned out, was demon omens over the last month.

While Bobby did his thing, Zoey sat on the couch eating ice cream from a tub balanced on her belly and worried. Where could Sam be? The past few weeks had been hard on their relationship, since she was at Bobby's and he was all over the country, but they'd spoken on the phone almost every day. Usually about the hunts he and Dean were on - there was nothing else for them to talk about. Zoey wasn't doing much except just being pregnant. And eating a lot of ice cream. She got through probably a tub every two days. But today she was wolfing it down due to the added anxiety of Sam's disappearance.

"C'mon, Zoey," Bobby said, throwing her coat at her. "We gotta go meet Dean."

It rained on the way, but when Bobby finally pulled his truck up by Dean's Impala on the side of the freeway, the rain had stopped. But it was still a little windy as Zoey shut the truck door and made her way over to the hood of the Impala, where Dean stood waiting.

"Hey," he half-smiled as she approached. "You've gotten bigger."

"I can balance a tub of ice cream on it now," she replied with a smirk.

"Quit yer chit chat," Bobby said, placing a map on the hood on the Impala. "This is it. All demonic omens over the past month."

Zoey and Dean looked at the map. "You joking?" Dean frowned. "There's nothing here. What about the low-level stuff, the normal exorcisms, that kinda thing?"

"That's what I'm telling ya," Bobby replied. "There's nothing, it's completely quiet."

"How are we supposed to look for Sam, do we just close our eyes and point?" Dean said in frustration.

"And spin in a circle," Zoey said. "Then you'll get him."

"Shut up, Zoey." Dean was too frustrated for her jokes. Sam was _missing_, it wasn't the time for that. He was relieved when Ash called. "Hey, Ash, what you got?"

The babies wiggled about a bit as Dean talked on the phone. "Never freakin' comfortable, are you?" She said to them.

"They kickin'?" Bobby asked.

"Nope, just shifting," Zoey replied. "I swear, they're never happy whatever position they're in. I guess they get a bit squished, being two of them."

"I guess we're going to the roadhouse," Dean said, hanging up the phone. "Come on."

Zoey was half-asleep when they pulled into the roadhouse. But she woke up fast when she saw the state it was in.

Something had burnt it to the ground.

"Shit," she whispered. "Shit, shit, shit!" As soon as the Impala came to a halt, Zoey scrambled out of the car and ran towards the wreckage. She knew she shouldn't be running considering how heavily pregnant she was, but she didn't care. All she could think was that Stacey could be in that wreckage. "STACEY!" She shouted, knowing full well that if she were nearby, Stacey would be too dead to respond. "Stacey!"

Desperately, Zoey started moving bits of rubble. "Either of you see Stacey?" She asked.

"Nope," Bobby replied.

Zoey felt a hand on her shoulder and whipped around to see Dean. "I don't think she's here," he said. "Her car's gone."

A wave of relief came over Zoey. "Then where the hell is she?"

"More importantly, Ash is here," said Bobby, looking down at the burnt remains of Ash.

Zoey's head snapped up to look at Bobby. "_More importantly_? How the hell is that more important? She's my sister! I don't care who is here, it coulda been her! Yeah, it sucks that Ash is dead, but right now my sister and Dean's brother are both gone and we gotta know where they are! So somehow I don't think it's more important that Ash is here, we gotta focus on the ones we _can't_ locate!"

"Zoey-" Dean began, but he cut himself off with a moan of pain. "Argh!" He exclaimed, closing his eyes in pain.

"Dean, what's wrong?" Zoey turned to him immediately.

"Son of a-" Dean bent over, his head in his hands, in terrible pain. Then it stopped, and he looked up.

"What the hell was that?" Bobby said.

"Headache," Dean replied. "But I think I saw something."

"A vision?" Zoey asked incredulously, raising an eyebrow.

"Like one of Sam's?" Bobby looked worried. Zoey was too.

"I dunno, I- I saw Sam. And a bell."

"What kinda bell?" Bobby asked immediately.

"An old bell! It had some kinda engraving on it."

"Was it an old oak tree?"

Zoey and Dean looked over at Bobby in unison. "Yeah, exactly that," Dean said.

"I know where Sam is," Bobby told them with certainty.

The day was turning out to be very, very long. It had been night when Dean had called, day when they arrived at the roadhouse; now, as they arrived at the place of the bell, it was nightfall again. The babies were moving about again at Zoey, Dean and Bobby prepared their saltguns and flashlights to start walking through the forest.

The walk wasn't very far and the trees weren't very densely packed, so the three of them arrived pretty quickly at the abandoned town. "SAM!" Dean yelled. They turned a corner, and Zoey sighed a sigh of relief when they saw Sam, clutching his arm.

"Dean," he said in relief. "Zoey."

Then, it all happened. And it happened fast. A man - a black man Zoey had never seen before, appeared behind Sam, clutching a knife.

"Sam, look out!" Dean yelled.

But it was too late. The knife was pushed into Sam's back and the black man ran off as Sam fell to the ground. Dean ran towards his brother, Bobby ran after the black man and Zoey's heart almost stopped. No, no, no, that didn't just happen! Sam wasn't dying. He didn't just get stabbed.

But he did get stabbed, and he was dying. Zoey felt her head go light and all the muscles in her body contracted at once. Unable to stop herself, tears began rolling down her cheeks as she watched Sam die in Dean's arms.

"Sam..." she sobbed, her voice broken. "No..."

Zoey had taken only a step towards him when she fell to the ground, catching herself on her knees and elbows. Grief overwhelmed her, consuming every thought she could have. Sam was dead, he couldn't be dead, but he was dead.

"Hey," said Bobby softly, a hand on her shoulder. He was back from running after the black man. "C'mon, Zoey, sit up. Look at me."

She refused to move, so Bobby grabbed her under the shoulders and pulled her up. He was visibly shocked by the almost empty expression on her face. They looked at each other for a few moments, Bobby's eyes shocked and Zoey's a strange mixture of emptiness and despair. Then, she bent over double and screamed, clutching her swollen belly.

"Zoey!" Bobby exclaimed, panicking. "What's wrong, what's happening?"

"Not now," she said hoarsely. "Not now, not today, it's too early."

"Zoey," Bobby repeated firmly, "what's wrong?"

She swallowed before speaking. "They're coming."


	21. The Worst Kind Of Pain

The scene in the Impala was a strange one as Dean drove as fast as he could. He and Bobby sat in the front seats, while Zoey sat on the floor in the footspace of the backseat, and Sam's... Zoey couldn't bring herself to think it. Sam lay on the backseat.

Dean no doubt earned himself a dozen speeding tickets as he arrived at the lay-by Bobby had left his truck at. "Ride with Bobby," Dean said as Bobby opened Zoey's door. "We... I'll meet you at his."

"Don't leave me," Zoey pleaded.

Dean looked over at Sam painfully. "I have to."

"Come on," said Bobby as he lifted Zoey and carried her over to his truck. "You doing okay?"

"I'm in premature labour in the middle of the freeway," she replied as Bobby started the truck and took off after Dean. "I'm just great."

By the time they were back at Bobby's, Zoey was screaming as Bobby lay her down on the couch. She hardly noticed Stacey until she was by her side.

"What are you doing here?" Zoey asked between screams of pain.

"Dean called," Stacey replied. "C'mon, let's get you on the floor, you'll be more comfortable there." She helped Zoey down onto some blankets Bobby had put on the floor. "Just try to breathe. This isn't gonna be high on dignity," she said as she pulled Zoey's pants off.

Although her mind was overwhelmed with the pain she was feeling, she still felt self-concious that her lady parts were on full show - although, two mini-Winchesters were about to burst out of it, so Stacey was right about the lack of dignity.

"Do you need anything?" Bobby asked, standing awkwardly to the side.

"Dean," Zoey said through her painful moans. "Where's Dean?"

Tears ran down Dean's face as he looked at Sam's empty body, misery and grief and self-anger and every type of negative emotion ran through him as he knew he had failed.

His thoughts were interrupted when Bobby opened the door. "She's asking for ya," he said.

"Not right now," Dean replied, his voice barely a whisper.

"DEAN!" Zoey yelled from the other room. "GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE!"

Dean stood up suddenly and whirled around, facing Zoey through the doorway. "I don't have time for you right now," he told her angrily. "My brother is dead!"

"I don't care if you don't have time for me," she shouted back, "at least have time for your own kids!"

Dean was taken aback. "Wait, they're mine?"

"Yes!"

He started forward, even angrier now. "When the hell were you gonna tell me?"

"Never, now get down here before I kick your ass!"

Dean hesitated for a brief moment before kneeling down next to her. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just look after her," Stacey told him as Zoey grabbed his hand. "I'll do the rest." She positioned herself between Zoey's legs as the top of the first head was poking out. "Zoey, I'm gonna need you to push. Now!"

Zoey screamed and gripped Dean's hand tighter as she pushed with all her might.

"That's good!" Stacey said, "now breathe... and push again."

Zoey did so, and Stacey grabbed the baby by its torso and pulled the rest out.

For a brief moment, the pain subsided. "Isn't it supposed to be screaming?" Zoey asked, exhausted, as she pushed herself up on her elbows. "Why isn't it screaming?"

Stacey had the baby in her arms, most of it hidden from view. Zoey could hardly see it. Stacey looked up at Zoey, a horrified look on her face. "What's wrong?" Zoey asked immediately, terrified.

"I'm so sorry, Zoey," Stacey breathed. "She just wasn't ready."

"Oh, God," Dean said as he released Zoey's hand in shock. She tried to lift herself up, but couldn't.

"What is it, what's wrong?" She repeated. "What's wrong with my baby?"

"She's..." Stacey could hardly get her words out.

"She's what?"

"She's dead."

The colour drained from Zoey's face. "No," she breathed. "No!" The word turned into another scream as the next baby started forcing its way into the breathing world. Zoey shut her eyes tight and buried herself in Dean's arms, not opening them as she pushed when Stacey told her to. When she finally let the light into her eyes again, it was on the cue of high-pitched wailing.

"He's okay!" Stacey grinned as she passed the child to its mother. "He's okay."

"Oh my God," Zoey breathed as she took the tiny baby in her arms. "He's so beautiful."

"What are you gonna name him?" Stacey asked.

Zoey looked down at her son, who couldn't have been much longer than a foot. Truth be told, she hadn't thought much about names, but she knew this child's name already. "His name is John," she said. And before she knew anymore, she blacked out.

When Zoey woke up, she thought she was alone. Until she realised Stacey was sitting in a chair next to her, waiting for her to wake up.

"Hey," said Stacey calmly. "How you doing?"

"Where is everyone?" Zoey asked groggily, sitting up.

"They got a fix on that demon," her sister replied. "They're all there now, but I had to stay behind for you."

"What, they just left Sam?"

Stacey hesitated. "No... no, they didn't."

"Then what?"

"Dean did something stupid," Stacey told her. "He made a deal. A demon deal."

"What? Oh my God." Zoey lay back down. "That man is a total moron."

"The good news is, Sam's alive. The bad news... Dean's only got a year."

"A year?" Zoey shot back up again. "Hold up, demon deals last ten years!"

"He only got one."

"Shit." Zoey buried her head in her hands. "Where's John?"

Stacey didn't reply.

"Stacey, come on, I don't have time for this. Where's my baby?"

"He was way too early-"

"Where is he?"

"Over there." Stacey indicated two small, motionless figures lying side-by-side. Zoey scrambled over, and shock overcame her as she saw the two newborn babies, her babies, with a tiny blanket covering their tiny bodies. Their tiny... dead bodies.

She looked away, bursting into tears. Stacey was quickly by her side, comforting her. "I'm so sorry, Zoey," Stacey whispered. "It was just too early."

Zoey looked back at her twins, and something changed. All the emotion in her drained away, and all she could see was what she had lost, what she had almost lost, and what she was yet to lose.

Stacey continued to hold her, but Zoey didn't cry anymore. She just stared.


	22. A Hollow Shell

**"Whuh?" You grunt with surprise as an e-mail pops up. "'Currently Nameless' has updated? I don't even remember what that is."**

**It caught me by surprise too... I was sitting at my desk, thinking, "what movie should I watch tonight?" when I found myself opening WordPad. "WRITING?" I thought to myself. "But I haven't written anything since my piss-poor English coursework last year!" Apparently that doesn't put me off resurrecting a fic that was dead for two years. But, hey, this is Supernatural. If Sam and Dean can come back from the dead 1000+ times, so can this little baby.**

**I have a plan, you guys. Actually, I've always had a plan. I don't know why I stopped writing, because as Supernatural's gone on, I've kept Zoey's story growing in my mind. I have everything planned up to and including season eight. Who knows if I will get there this time? Anywho, let's pick up where we left off. You might want to read the last two chapters if you've forgotten what's been happening. I'll admit I had to.**

**This chapter is very short, but the story will get juicy, I promise. Let's recommence!**

The Yellow-Eyed Demon was dead, and Sam was alive again. This was a time to be happy, wasn't it?  
Zoey felt nothing but an empty hole in her heart.

Her babies were dead. She'd held one in her arms for a brief moment, and the other not at all. Maybe it was for the better... perhaps the twins would be reincarnated, together hopefully, into a better life. A loving mother and a blue-collar father, a house and a stable environment to live in. They would be happier wherever they were. As Journey said, "the road ain't to place to start a family." What sort of a family would they have been anyway? Zoey would have laughed at the prospect of her and Dean as parents, if she had the capacity to laugh anymore.

The twins were cremated. None of them had ever met a baby ghost, but Bobby insisted on making certain. Zoey hardly noticed. She was somewhere else... or nowhere. She never really said much after that night. She was an empty shell, going through the motions. She didn't even protest when Stacey said she had to stop hunting for a while. Was it Stacey? Maybe it was one of the boys. Zoey wasn't there.

It happened one night, when the pain was still very fresh in Zoey's mind, that Sam and Dean went... where? Hunting? Probably. Bobby was somewhere too. Maybe hunting with them. Zoey was at Bobby's house, and Stacey was in the shower. Who can say where Zoey was at this moment? All anyone knew later was what happened next.

Stacey stepped out of the shower and slipped into a dressing gown. She made her way downstairs, hair still wet. She didn't like to leave her sister alone for long, so she wanted to check on her.

Zoey was gone.

Stacey looked all around the house, shouting for Zoey, but she knew very quickly that her sister wasn't there. Panicked, Stacey grabbed her phone and called Dean. He didn't pick up. She tried Sam.

"Hello?"

"Zoey's gone!" Stacey said as way of greeting.

"What?!"

"She's gone! I looked away for five minutes, and she wasn't there. I looked everywhere."

"What is it?" Dean asked in the background.

"Zoey's gone," Sam explained. There was a slight crackle on Stacey's end as Dean grabbed the phone from Sam.

"How can she be gone?" He demanded. "You were supposed to look after her!"

"I jumped in the shower for five minutes! She hadn't moved all day, I didn't think she'd even notice I was gone, but when I came downstairs, she vanished."

"Son of a bitch!" Dean swore loudly. "Alright, sit tight, I'm coming over-"

"No," Stacey interjected. "No, you guys stay on the trail. I'll look for Zoey."

"You know where she might be headed?"

"I have some ideas," she replied. "I'll keep you posted."

"You better," Dean replied. "Find her, Stacey. Just... find her."

"I will."

Stacey hung up the phone. In truth, she had closer to zero ideas where Zoey might have gone. You're upset, depressed, maybe a bit angry - definitely angry if you're Zoey - and very desparate. You've lost your children before you even had them, and your best friend has a year to live... where do you go?


End file.
